ABSTRACT
As the most eminent modern representative of functionalism, Talcott Parsons has been consistently attacked for his neglect of issues of conflict and power. The author's principal interest will be to comment on Parsons's analysis of power as such, It is undoubtedly the case that some 'zero-sum' theorists tend to argue as if power differentials inevitably entail conflicts of interest, and produce overt conflicts and fail to give sufficient attention to specifying the conditions under which no conflict of either type is present. It is just in this area that some of the most crucial problems in the study of power lie, and where conflict and coercion may play a major part. But whether deliberate or not, it is not only the fact that stable power systems rest upon stable legitimation of authority which is the key to the analysis of power but, as the 'zero-sum' theorists have always recognized, just how legitimation is achieved.
