Power: a Marxist view

Abstract

Abstract Lukes’ Power: A Radical View is a milestone in the debate on power. First, it criticises the narrow conceptions of political sociology, which reduces power to merely interpersonal relations. Second, it suggests an enlarged ontology of power capable of dealing with social coercion and collective action. Lukes, however, seeks the causes of power in politics and society by abstracting from the economic sphere. This detaches power from exploitation and confuses the essential with the only contingent forms of power of capitalism. The economics debate is predicated on this error because mainstream economics rules out the exploitative nature of capitalist production and introduces power later only as a residual category, which might develop only out of competition. The result is a mystified conception in which social coercion is no longer visible and competition appears as power-free. My ‘Marxist view’ on power is founded on a simple idea: exploitation in the economy imposes particular forms of power and coercion in society. Therefore, in the same way as the capitalist mode of production is essentially based on exploitation so it is also based on power and coercion. The economy is not merely one of the many possible sources of power, but the sphere in which the essential forms of capitalist power are generated. Competition is not the antithesis of power but the vehicle through which exploitation imposes the essential power relations of capitalism.