The Value of Destructive Power

From its inception, Political Economy has been interested in analysing the value of creative power or the value that agents, individually or collectively, can produce or exchange at national or international level. What is at stake here is the exact opposite: how much can an agent destroy?Destructive power has two different functions. It can be used as a means to grab or appropriate the value created by others. In its appropriative function, destructive power redistributes the social amount of created wealth without mutual consent of all participants. However, destructive power has a second function, namely rule-producing. The social product of destructive power as an end in itself is sovereignty.The value of destructive power in its appropriative function is differently determined from its value as a rule-producer. In the former case, the value of destructive power is based on a fundamental symmetry of action and reaction, and on equivalency of prejudices. In the latter case, there is no unique value for destructive power; it has manifold subjective, conventional valuations. Its manifold valuations are thus marked by the incommensurability principle.