Economics and Power: An Inquiry into Human Relations and Markets

When a marketplace is considered in isolation, the implicit conclusion is that markets are a sufficient defense against the exercise of power. But market transactions do not occur in isolation: they are defined by rules, property rights, prior events, and social values. This book widens the focus of traditional economic analysis to examine the ways in which people may affect each other within and around markets to give rise to real power. Using conventional neoclassical assumptions about hu...