Countervailing power

The term counter-power (English countervailing power ) refers to the possibility of compensation of unilateral market power by another power on the other side of the market, just the opposite power. This organizes itself independently.

The term first appeared with John Kenneth Galbraith . The term made a special career in the social science literature on trade unions. Their collective bargaining power corrects the results of the pure market process. In this respect, wage levels and distribution proportions are to be understood as the result of countervailing power.

Not to be confused with countervailing strategy , a US nuclear strategy .

literature

• E. Schmidt: Order factor or countervailing power. The political role of the trade unions, Frankfurt / M .; 1971;