Right, and the only way to ban those coffin sellers is by force. Someone has to be willing to go in there with a gun and make them stop. The ability to get th

Right, and the only way to ban those coffin sellers is by force. Someone has to be willing to go in there with a gun and make them stop. The ability to get that done is called "political power". Of course, normally it doesn't come to that, but the threat has to be real otherwise those naughty people will just go right on selling coffins. (My goodness, they might even be unsafe.) Yes, people often seek political power in order to maximize their economic power. And people with economic power can often gain political power. Nevertheless, the two types of power are distinct. Political power is the ability and willingness to initiate force against others. Economic power is the ability to deploy capital in production. Just because one can be used to pursue the other does not make them equivalent.