ON THE CONCEPT OF POWER IN ECONOMICS

In this paper we start with the standard definition of power and indicate how orthodox neoclassical economics fails to handle some of the key issues of power. In Sections II and III we discuss in the context of recent advances in economic theory some of the battlefields, so to speak, for the exercise of power: bargaining games in Section II and economic organizations and capitalist authority relations in Section III. In all of this we focus on the underlying structural factors. In the last Section we discuss some problems with both the behavioral and structural concepts of power.