Elements of a Science of Power: Hobbes, Smith and Ricardo

Heinz D. Kurz ()
Additional contact information
Heinz D. Kurz: University of Graz

Chapter 5 in Power in Economic Thought, 2018, pp 109-142 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Power is a pervasive phenomenon in the economy and society, associated with inequality of income, wealth, race, gender, information, and so on. However, much of contemporary economics still cherishes the purely abstract case of perfect competition in which no agent has any economic power whatsoever. Things were totally different at the time of the classical economists from Adam Smith to David Ricardo. Smith approved of Thomas Hobbes’ dictum that wealth is power but did not share the political inferences the latter drew from it. He and David Ricardo instead proposed economic policies, laws, regulations and institutions designed to contain the amassing of power in the hands of a few that endangered “the security of the whole society” (Smith).

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:pshchp:978-3-319-94039-7_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9783319940397

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-94039-7_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().