Clarifying power, domination, and exploitation : between "classical" and "Foucauldian" concepts of power

Abstract

The paper examines two ubiquitous concepts of power: the "classical sociological" concept which draws on Max Weber's definition of power, and the "Foucauldian" concept which stems from Michel Foucault's genealogical works. Three main theses are argued for. First, the two concepts are not, in most respects, as radically different as it is usually claimed. It is demonstrated that both can make room for different sources of power, for understanding power in a non-reified way, for the fact that power is rarely completely centralised, etc. Second, in those respects in which the two concepts actually differ, the classical view of power is more convincing and useful than the Foucauldian one. It is demonstrated that the Foucauldian view is implicitly positivist in the normative domain and thus unable to differentiate between power and domination, and that it succumbs to errors of methodological holism (i. e. undertheorising agency). Third, it is argued that the classical sociological view allows to analytically distinguish between power, domination and exploitation. These three categories are shown not to be synonymous and to carry with them importantly different sociological implications. It is demonstrated that exploitation cannot merely refer to any process of unpaid appropriation of surplus as obvious false positives are generated from this definition. Nonetheless, such appropriation is the fundamental characteristic which differentiates exploitation from domination (but not power itself), and this reveals an important sociological implication for the dynamics of struggle of the exploited against exploitation in contrast to the struggle of the dominated against the dominators.