Power in Economic Thought
by Manuela Mosca (Editor)

About the Author
Manuela Mosca is Professor of History of Economic Thought in the Department of Economics, University of Salento, Italy and Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought and of the Editorial Board of History of Economic Theory and Policy. Her main research interests are the history of the theory of monopoly power and marginalism in Italy.

About this book
This book offers a pluralistic vision of the way econo-mists have dealt with the question of power in society over the last two centuries. Econo-mists’ ideas about power are examined from political, theoretical and policy-making points of view, with additional discussion of the active participation of econo-mists in the management of power.
The book is organized into four main conceptions of power relations: i) Power as embedded in political institutions; ii) Power as emerging from the asymmetric relations caused by the unequal distribution of income and wealth; iii) Power as associated to the monopolistic or oligopolistic position held by some firms in the market; and iv) Power as the management of economic policies by the state.
Mosca brings together contributions from a range of scholars to analyse how econo-mists have considered the role of power, putting the discussion into a much needed historical context.

Table of contents
1 Introduction 1
Part I The Republic and the Sovereign: Econo-mists on Political Power 15
2 The Dream to Tame the Leviathan: Authoritarian Power and the Market 17
3 Sismondi’s Political Economy: Translating Power into Sociability 51
4 The Question of Democracy for the Italian Marginalists (1882–1924) 81
Part II The Asymmetries of Power: Income, Wealth and Social Control 107
5 Elements of a Science of Power: Hobbes, Smith and Ricardo 109
6 Power and Poverty: Social Legislation in the Years of Adam Smith 143
7 Debates on Social Insurance in the French Liberal School 169
Part III Market Power and Institutions in Theory and Policy 197
8 Power Wars Between Institutions: Business Training in Higher Education 199
9 The Early Oligopolistic Models: Market Power in the Paretian Tradition 227
10 Dispersion of Power as an Economic Goal of Antitrust Policy 251
Part IV Managing Power: Econo-mists as Policy Makers 291
11 Jean-Baptiste Say on Political Power (1793–1832) 293
12 Keynes and Eucken on Capitalism and Power 321
13 Power and Economics in Italy: From the Social Conflicts of the 1970s to the Euro-Crisis 349

Series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought
Length: 393 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed. 2018 edition (November 4, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3319940384
ISBN-13: 978-3319940380

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