Money and Power

Political scientists are fond of observing that "power is to us what money is to the economist: the medium via which transactions are observed and measured."' The analogy sometimes implies, as it does in this quotation, that money and power perform similar social functions. At other times it seems to mean that political scientists ought to spend as much time thinking about power as economists do thinking about money. At still other times one detects an envious tone that seems to say, "How lucky are the economists to