The processes of 'disembedding' analysed by Karl Polanyi as part of the 'great transformation' are still continuing. They comprise not only market mechanisms but money and energy, space and time regimes. Especially under the pressures of globalization disembedded money, fossil energies, abstract time and space act as external constraints of the world market on social systems. Societies have to adjust structurally to the conditions set by compulsory mechanisms. How do they work? In order to give an answer to this question the authors examine the structure of markets, particularly the world market. External constraints are important for the possibilities of democratic participation; disembedding mechanisms restrict democracy's place.