Truth of Power

Power, in a society, is little more than the ability to request peoples' cooperation, and then be able to give them reasons, positive or negative, to agree. What often goes unseen is the fact that the ability to give others reason to cooperate is itself built on the cooperation of others. Laws, regulations and even social mores are all built on a foundation of cooperation at some point. On the individual and some small group levels, an individual may be able to threaten force as a means of coercion, but at larger scales, there needs to be an agreement to fulfill requests or instructions. As an example, the President is the Commander in Chief of the United States military, but if commanders refuse to carry out or relay his orders, he would be unable to personally force compliance. His ability to command the insubordinate to be arrested is itself predicated on military or capitol police following his orders.

While in organized and mature societies, it is irrational to expect an abrupt, unanimous, rejection of the authority of any given person, a gradual erosion is reasonable, and in fact has happened over and over in human history. People decide of their own accord to reject the norm of obedience to a particular rule, institution or individual, and over time, that entity moves from being powerful to powerless.

This makes the ability to give people reasons to cooperate the foundation of social power. And it means that powerlessness is really a function of not having anything to share with others as an inducement. It becomes something of a vicious circle in that sense. Having resources can be enough to purchase cooperation in taking resources from others. Those people who don't have enough to purchase cooperation have difficulty in protecting their resources from those who do.

By the same token the cooperative nature of power both simplifies and complicates accountability. In the end, people are held accountable because some group of people wish them to be so, and no-one else is ready, willing or able to muster a countervailing pressure to shield them. Or vice versa. And so the forces that drive accountability in society are independent of the law, to the degree that the law, in and of itself, cannot compel people to cooperate with it.

In the end, power tends to be a historical artifact. It attaches to people who are perceived to have gained it by legitimate (enough) means from those who had it in the past. And it remains there for as long as people understand that some interest of theirs is served by  it being so, or for as long as they have no pressing interest to change it. And while this may be deeply unsatisfying to some, I do find it to be a useful thing to keep in mind.