ABSTRACT
Economics generally excludes empirical analyses of how the soft power of marketing is exercised. Applying Foucault’s concepts of power offers a fruitful way of analyzing marketing as an exercise of power, which implies that competition must be defined in terms of power. In Foucauldian economics, business economists not only observe markets; rather, they have to exercise power and must therefore acquire the rationalizing skills of professional power technologies. Competitive firms participate in a competition dispositive which constitutes general principles for integrating the competing firm within its environment. Competition does not only spur differentiation and growth, it also expands throughout society, tending to become the dominating way of exercising power. This implies that the economy is basically irreversible and usually not in equilibrium.
