ABSTRACT
This chapter defines politics from philosophical and scientific perspectives, and discusses the integral relationship between politics and power, again from philosophical and scientific perspectives. The liberal and Marxist understandings of power are compared, the concept of power is specified, the significance of power base analysis is discussed, and nine bases of power—money, knowledge, authority, God/religion, morality, size/solidarity, charisma, status and violence—are defined and explained from liberal and Marxist perspectives. The chapter concludes with discussion of how white men in America used the power bases to subordinate women and blacks, and how they in turn attempted to acquire and use these bases to build a sexually and racially egalitarian society.
