Market Power Extended: From Foucault to Meadows

Katharina Biely, Dries Maes and Steven Van Passel
Additional contact information
Katharina Biely: Centre for Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Business Economics, Hasselt University, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium
Dries Maes: Department of Economy, Science & Innovation, Flemish Administration, Koning Albert II laan 35, 1030 Brussel, Belgium
Steven Van Passel: Department of Engineering Management, Faculty of Applied Economics, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: Market power is a complex matter that is approximated with quantitative indicators within economics. However, these indicators may not fully capture market power, or they may fail to identify it, although it may be present. Moreover, a quantitative approach restricts market power as a concept, impeding the ability to discuss its relationship with other concepts, such as sustainability. This paper extends the definition of market power, following Foucault’s understanding of power and the associated theoretical discussions of power from different disciplines. We extended Foucault’s work by including systems thinking to capture the importance of the prevalent system’s paradigm, which is the ultimate initiator of action. Apart from distinguishing different elements of power, we also integrate an instrumental view on the elements of power. The developed frame allows us to understand the dynamic character of power as a force that strives to maintain or ameliorate the position of the paradigm that it serves. Based on this frame, we outline how this extended understanding of power can be used to analyze market power itself, and its relation with sustainability.

Keywords: power; market power; Foucault; sustainability; systems thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2843/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2843/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:8:p:2843-:d:163069

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().