Abstract
Power has been the subject of comment and analysis for centuries. Recently several excellent inquiries have appeared that consider the nature of power and problems generated by its presence.1 Not only have economists identified sources and expressions of power but other social scientists have investigated the uses and results of power. This chapter introduces the topic of power and questions its prevalence within modern American capitalism. What is power? How can it be measured? Where does it reside in our system? What impact has it had on the citizens of this society?
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Notes
Some excellent examples are: (1) Adolf A. Berle, Power (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1967);
Andrew Cox, Paul Furlong, and Edward Page, Power in Capitalist Societies: Theory, Explanations, and Cases (New York: St. Martins Press, 1985);
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Anatomy of Power (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983);
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987);
Walter Adams and James W. Brock, The Bigness Complex (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).
The American Heritage Dictionary 2nd college ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), pp. 971–972.
A historical account is presented in: Kenneth G. Dolbeare, American Political Thought (Monterey: Duxbury Press, 1981), pp. 171–203.
G. C. Archibald, “Chamberlin V. Chicago,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XXIX, 1962–4, pp. 2–28.
See: George J. Stigler, “The Economist Plays with Blocs,” The American Economic Review, May, 1954, pp. 7–14; and George J. Stigler, “The Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve and Rigid Prices,” Journal of Political Economy, October, 1947, pp. 432–49.
As examples: Caroline Hodges Persell, Understanding Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 354;
Ian Robertson, Sociology (New York: Worth, 1987), p. 596.
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1957),
as quoted in Alex Thio, Sociology: An Introduction (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 357.
Marvin E. Olsen, Power In Societies (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 3.
Amatai Etzioni, The Active Society (New York: The Free Press, 1968), pp. 314–23 and 357–61.
Robert Bierstedt, “An Analysis of Social Power,” American Sociological Review, December, 1950, pp. 730–38.
Robert Dubin, “Power, Function, and Organization,” Pacific Sociological Review, Spring, 1963, pp. 16–22.
Robert A. Dahl, “The Concept of Power,” Behavioral Science, July, 1957, p. 202.
Dahl, op. cit., p. 204.
Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1950.
Don Hellriegel, John W. Slocum, and Richard W. Woodman, Organizational Behavior (St. Paul: West, 1986), pp. 462–64.
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1984 (Washington, D.C., U.S. Bureau of the Census), p. 780.
This analysis is based on: Adolf A. Berle, The American Economic Republic (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), pp. 24–54;
David A. Bazelon, The Paper Economy (New York: Random House, 1963), pp. 175–90.
Geatano Mosca, The Ruling Class (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939).
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).
Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Zeigler, The Irony of Democracy (North Scituate: Duxbury Press, 1982), pp. 3–18.
Peter Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic Elitism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).
This section is based on: Daniel M. Ogden, Jr., “How National Policy Is Made,” Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies (Chicago: Farm Foundation, 1971), pp. 5–9.
This section is derived from: R.D. Peterson, “Pluralist Democracy, Political Economy, and Modern American Capitalism,” Akron Business and Economic Review, Summer, 1978, pp. 14–19.
Abba P. Lerner, “The Concept of Monopoly and the Measurement of Monopoly Power,” Review of Economic Studies, June, 1934, pp. 157–75.
This relation is shown in James V. Koch, Industrial Organization and Prices, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1980), pp. 62–3.
Edward H. Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933).
Morris A. Copeland, “Competing Products and Monopolistic Competition,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 55, No. 1, 1940.
Kurt W. Rothchild, “The Degree of Monopoly,” Economica, February, 1942, pp. 24–40.
Andreas G. Papandreau, “Market Structure and Monopoly Power,” American Economic Review, September, 1949, pp. 883–97.
Joe S. Bain, “The Profit Rate As A Measure of Monopoly Power,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1941, pp. 271–93.
Joe S. Bain, Industrial Organization (New York: Wiley, 1959), pp. 365–69.
Joe S. Bain, Industrial Organization (New York: Wiley, 1968), pp. 398–401.
Norman R. Collins and Lee E. Preston, Concentration and Price Cost Margins in Manufacturing Industries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 119–21.
See R.D. Peterson, “Product Differentiation, Implicit Theorizing, and the Methodology of Industrial Organization,” Nebraska Journal of Business and Economics, Spring, 1980, pp. 22–36.
For an excellent discussion of the nature of industrial concentration ratios, see: William L. Baldwin, Market Power, Competition and Antitrust Policy (Homewood: R.D. Irwin, 1987), pp. 149–78.
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1982–83, p. 535.
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1987, p. 503.
Ibid.
For example, see: E. Singer, “The Structure of Concentration Indexes,” Antitrust Bulletin, April, 1965, pp. 75–103; and C. Marfels, “A Bird’s Eye View to Measures of Concentration,” Antitrust Bulletin, Fall, 1975, pp. 485–501.
Executive Office of the President (OMB), Standard Industrial Industrial Classification Manual (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972).
D. Baker and W. Blumenthal, “De-Mystifying the HH Index,” Merger and Acquisition, Summer, 1984, pp. 42–46.
G. Rosenbluth, “Measures of Concentration,” Business Concentration and Price Policy (Princeton: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1955), p. 62.
See: “The 1982 Merger Guidelines and Pre-existing Law,” Columbia Law Review, Vol. 311, 1983, pp. 333–35.
One illuminating attempt is: John Munkirs, The Transformation of American Capitalism (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1985).
This point is discussed in C. E. Ayres, The Theory of Economic Progress (New York: Schrocken Books, 1962), pp. 155–76.
Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1948).
See: W. G. Shepherd, The Economics of Industrial Organization (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 27–37, 41–43, and 125–40. Northern Pacific Railway Company v. U.S., 356 U.S. 1, 1958.
Bain, (1968), op. cit., p. 401.
Chamberlin, op. cit., pp. 56–7.
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Peterson, R. (1988). Industrial Power: Meaning and Measurement. In: Peterson, W.C. (eds) Market Power and the Economy. Recent Economic Thought Series, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2673-8_1
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