Power-law rates constitute a common approximation to the general analysis of the stability properties of complex reaction networks. We point out in this paper that this form for the rates does not need to be assumed as an approximation for general rate laws; On the contrary, any functional form for a rate law can be represented exactly in terms of power laws. Moreover, we can uniquely associate to any set of kinetic equations an equivalent "conjugate" representation in terms of the well-known generalized Lotka-Volterra equations, standing for what we caliper capita rates, which amounts to a great simplification in terms of the structural form of the mathematical representation of a reaction network.