Costs, profits, and prices as the result of old and source of new power entanglements: the causality of power and power relations

Christian Aspalter

Chapter 14 in Quantum Economics, 2025, pp 122-143 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: As the first of the two main chapters of this book, this chapter starts to replace neoclassical economics with new insights from power-based and power-relations-based quantum economics. It begins with the refusal of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk to acknowledge or pay attention (not to ignore) to the problem of lack of power as a causal variable in the economic theory of neoclassical economics. There is an almost complete lack of acknowledgment of the causal role of control by some people (the super-rich, the super powerful) over all others. His shoulders, like those of many others who decided, like him, that power and control are not important at all in economics, must carry the blame for the downfall of neoclassical economics. The chapter delves into power and power relations. Based on the theories of Randall Holcombe, Michel Foucault, and Kurt Rothschild, a four-fold typology of powers in economics is proposed: exclusionist, elitist, damaging/corrosive, and destructive powers. Deep into the realm of power relations goes the next part. The works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Schumpeter, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, and Pierre Bourdieu stand at the center of it all. The next part focuses on the self-propelling nature of economic development (or a set of economic events), with the help of William Stanley Jevons’ groundbreaking work on the coal question and Adolph Wagner's law of cost explosion. Then the works of Friedrich von Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Harvey Leibenstein, Ludwig von Mises, and Gunnar Myrdal are used to flesh out the theory of quantum economics further still.

Keywords: Costs; Profits; Prices; Values; Power and power relations; Randall Holcombe; Joseph Schumpeter; William Stanley Jevons; Adolph Wagner; Friedrich von Hayek; Ludwig von Mises; Gunnar Myrdal; Harvey Leibenstein (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035366804
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035366811.00020 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

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:elg:eechap:24805_14

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().