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Title: Two Definitions Of Power
Author: William Gillis
Date: 13th November 2009
Language: en
Topics: power
Source: http://humaniterations.net/2009/11/13/two-definitions-of-power/

William Gillis

Two Definitions Of Power

In our everyday language we often to use the term “power” in very

different ways. This can lead to all manner of confusion. Worse, it can

hobble our own understanding of a situation and allow others to twist

and distort our capacity to call shit out. The Bolsheviks infamously

appropriated and distorted the decentralist, anti-state slogan “All

Power to the Soviets!” into a rallying cry for centralized state

control. Today one can visit a demonstration and simultaneously see

“Power To The People” sprayed on walls while at the same time “Fight The

Power” blasts out a stereo. In activist critiques talk of “empowerment”

runs parallel to struggles to “abolish all power relations.” All of

these notions are clearly related, but the occasional dissonance between

them poses a danger worth addressing.

There are ultimately, I feel, two broad ways we think of and use the

term “power”:

1. Power as capacity. The enhancement or expansion of one’s options.

2. Power as control. The limitation or suppression of one’s options.

With empowerment, aside from the abstract connotations of

self-actualization, what’s really being said is: one has the capacity to

do something. When one has the ‘power to lift something’ one has the

ability to lift it.

But with the strict sociological definition of power, we specifically

refer to control over another; coercion perhaps not conveyed in violence

or the threat of violence, but nevertheless a situation where one person

looses to some degree their own agency to become a extension of some

external will. Or, in the material case, where an object’s behavior is

determined more fully by one’s will. On a first glance this appears to

follow from the definition as capacity — when you control other people

that control can grant you the capacity to undertake vast projects, to

build pyramids and pick cotton.

We say that one individual has ‘power over another‘ when they can

determine that individual’s actions/thoughts. However that same phrase

can be — and often is — read as having more power than another. Thus

power might simply be a quantity. A substance, the unequal distribution

of which between the two individuals is the source of the determination

of the other’s thoughts/actions. This is the classical Marxist position,

often directly referring to the distribution of resources. One person

“has” more resources and these resources lend them the capacity to take

certain actions with a varying degree of force. Between two individuals

the one with the most material capacity can win any contention between

wills, and thus has control over the other because they have more

capacity. Further this control, once obtained, can grant the controlling

party the capacity to do even more. Capacity, being the root concept in

this model, often appears to be the subject best deserving the

recognition of the term “power.”

But is this really so?

We can easily conceive of a situation where, despite equal allocations

of capacity, both individuals are capable of coercing one another. Even

further, occasions where they do_._ Two people can assert a high degree

of control over one another without either acquiring any additional

capacity — with, in fact, such control limiting both of them.

This is not just a specific hypothetical, this is the most common case._

One might be intelligent and manipulative while the other might be

strong and brutal. Both individual’s wills would be constrained by the

other’s conditions. The brute may intimidate the conman while

simultaneously be in turn manipulated by him. The conman’s agency

constrained by the ever-present threat of the brute’s fury on some

areas, while the brute may be beguiled into certain forms of behavior.

One might object that this only demonstrates the existence of different

kinds of power. But we can, with a little more thought, replicate the

same phenomenon with two conmen or two brutes. While in a contest of

wills neither party will triumph in achieving their goal, both parties

find themselves constrained. Even if one party finally triumphs, the

extra exertion is limiting.

The contest of wills itself is constraining. And yet neither party would

consider the other powerless. In fact both would likely consider the

other to be exerting power over them. The conmen in particular may find

themselves ever more deeply wrapped in a relationship they are unable to

escape, their thoughts ever more dominated by reactive calculations.

In short, both parties capacities are reduced while we do not say the

same of their power. Power thus seems to operate as “control.” In

everyday use we don’t run across situations where one speaks of “having

power” in a situation of high capacity and low control. But there are

situations where one “has power” with high control and low capacity.

We’re reminded of the classic image of a king becomes a slave to his own

throne. He has power — control — but is controlled himself by the

maintenance of it.

Power then — despite some sloppy thinking — is best referenced in the

social realm not as a quantity of capacity but rather a relationship of

control. Often to some degree mutual control.

Power is a psychosis. Our goal as Anarchists is not to equalize power

and give everyone the same 5.3 milliHitlers of oppression each. Unlike

the Marxists our goal is not to attempt some balancing of the books.

It’s to overcome the very premise of our existing social relations.

“It seems to me that the truly American Revolution would be to abolish

power.”

–Karl Hess.