ABSTRACT
Power often serves as a counterweight to uncertainty, men may derive from institutionalised power a reduction of insecurity, whether economic or otherwise. Contemporary sociological theories, not least of class and stratification, are rooted in the general sociological engagement with classical economic theory. The origins of modern sociology, it has often been noted, lie in the emergence of industrial society itself. Within classical economic and political liberalism, power was regarded as dangerous because it was defined in terms of corrupt vested interests. In reply to the conservative view that the exercise of power through established social institutions and organisations could protect men from the economic uncertainty and instability, the exponents of economic liberalism urged a belief in self-equilibrating mechanism of the market. The relationship between the state and the economy under capitalism has been various. Power in the generalised sense of 'constraint' arising from the very existence of a social system reappears in a number of sociological guises.
