Parsons, Talcott (1902–1979)

Talcott Parsons was a prolific American sociologist who wrote widely on society, developing a theory of social evolution. His most significant work on power and influence was published in the early 1960s. His main thesis was that power in a political system, and influence within a social system, serve the same function as money in an economic system. Parsons recognizes that the core idea behind human power is some kind of capacity to get things done. However, he argues that we need to go beyond this core idea when analyzing power itself.

Parsons addresses the issue of power in terms of three problems. The first is that power is too often described in terms of other things, such as influence or money, and this reduces it to other aspects of society. Power needs to be treated as a process in its own right and not reduced to other sets of processes. Second, Parsons argues that there is a problem with power being not one but two things. Power is both coercive and consensual, he argues. Coercive power is getting people to do things that one wants. Consensual power is working together with others to attain outcomes that one otherwise could not have achieved. Finally, he argues that there is a problem in many power studies in that they see power as zero sum. That is, whatever gains in power one agent enjoys necessarily means that there is someone else who loses power. Parsons maintains that we should not think of power as zero sum; on the contrary, by working together we can gain in power. Power is a positive-sum concept.

While Parsons recognizes power in the coercive sense, he argues that power in society should rather be seen as consensual. It can be generated by [Page 473]a social system much as money is generated by an economic system. The aspect of power, like money, that might make it appear zero sum is that what power (or money) a given individual has cannot be held by another. However, by using our powers together we can generate more power in some social systems than in differently organized ones. Industrial societies have more power than agrarian ones, for example. Parsons believes that, also like money, power is a circulating medium in the sense that binding obligations can be generated as different people or subunits of society recognize the legitimacy and authority of others. These allow us to attain collective goals. Like monetary units, accepted by convention, these authoritative directives are accepted by convention. Power is thus derivative from authority, with the latter being the institutionalized legitimation which underlies power.

There are four channels through which power can be utilized: two are material and two communicative. First, we have material negative and positive incentives (say, monetary rewards or threats); second, we have negative and positive incentives through communication (influence through persuasion of good reason or threats in the form that such action would be “morally wrong”). Parsons discounts compulsion with legitimation as being a form of power at all. The wielding of power is not the wielding of force. He offers no decisive reasons as to why all power is legitimate and thus ensures his discussion of power is outside many of the major debates about the power structure of society.

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