Chapter 10

Power [1]

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Ze-Dong

The gun that does not have to shoot is more

eloquent than the gun that has to shoot and

above all than the gun which has shot.

Salvador de Madariaga

We began studying power in Chapter Two when we examined man's psychological drive to dominate other people and things--the drive by which he complements his security with freedom of action. Power has been involved whenever we have examined a relationship and an interaction. From the child who charms the candy from his mother to the group which inculcates its norms into its members, power is being exercised. And the traffic is not just one-way. The mother may not give in, and the member of the group can both resist inculcation and influence and modify the norms.

Our present discussion of the phenomenon of power, then, is the continuation of what we have been examining all along. In that vein, the term "power" is all-pervasive, connoting the omnipotence of God as well as the energy produced by electricity. As Merriam put it, there was power long before there was a written word for it. But within the pattern developed in the last chapter, even if we may at times make analogies between power and certain elemental manifestations, we will concentrate on power as the human actualization of socio-political fermentations and dynamics. Even within that context, power reveals itself as pervasive. How could a child's tantalizing charms, a religion's imposing admonitions and a group's social pressures all carry ingredients of power? To answer that question we will need to see of what power is made.

I. The Sources of Power

In the last chapter we discussed man's ability to extract energy from nature, and also to exploit his fellow men to that end. These abilities supplement man's original raw energy, giving him additional strength. While exploitation needs some brute physical force, our above examples show that power does not depend solely on physical strength. The child can hardly be said to be twisting its mother's arm--literally--to obtain her favors. Brute force can, of course, give its holder the possibility of control which lasts as long as the holder is forcefully superior. But its very simplicity and directness make it vulnerable and breakable. Naked force can easily be evaluated and analyzed. It is like a piece of stone: it holds only by its weight and rigidity, and when it hits other rigid phenomena weaker than itself, it breaks them. When it encounters superior force, it breaks. It is only a part of the more complex phenomenon of power which, in its flexibility, is like a rubber ball or a spring. Power has the potentials of adaptation, resistance and pressure. In its encounter with a superior but simpler force it does not break; it can contract or retreat and withhold its potentials without being irremediably crushed or broken. In a favorable position, it can assume the rigidity of steel and strike back. Power is. Even when it retracts it makes its pressure felt. The phenomenon that can be squeezed and takes its new squeezed shape without being able to return the pressure is not, in our analogy of power, a rubber ball or a spring; it is a piece of dough! Power is by the awe of its presence.[2]

In terms of social politics, power can draw from different sources. We have already mentioned brute force whose ingredients range from the physical (muscular) to certain aspects of the psychological--stubbornness, fanaticism or even determination. These latter intangible factors are included within the concept of force because when certain character traits such as stubbornness or fanaticism reach the point of rigidified behavioral patterns, they become comparable to brute force. The propulsion they produce is forceful, rigid and yet, in its directness, vulnerable. Of course, as it is for other sources of power, the evaluation of force is subjective. While in a power situation the assumption would be that if B submits to A's command it is because B finds submitting to A more agreeable than suffering A's force or coercion, the preference remains relative.[3] A masochist perceives pain differently than a paranoiac.

The means at a power's disposal are obviously of great importance. Means range from primary tools and weapons near the force end of the spectrum to more subtle factors such as money and wealth.[4] By considering means as the ingredient of power immediately linked with brute force, we can understand how mans cultural interaction with his environment, through manipulation, exploitation and accumulation, can generate the sources of power.

The position from which power is exercised is another crucial factor. Like force and means, position can cover a spectrum going from the simple instance of a strategic location to complex social situations.[5] The president of a bank, the governor of a state, the justice of the peace each holds a position conducive to power. We must note, however, that the aspect of the position we are considering at this stage is not totally identical with authority. Authority is the legitimized dimension of power which we will discuss in the coming chapter. What we are presently considering is neither an office nor exactly the right to power that it legitimizes but the power potential that a position can provide even beyond the framework of its formal authority. The bank president has the authority to sign the grant of loans. But he does so mostly on the advice of his experts. In performing that function he may be doing no more than a post office clerk with the authority to legalize a signature. Beyond that simple signature, however, the bank president holds a position which can radiate power. It depends very much on the man and the use he makes of the other ingredients at his disposal to wield power by exploiting his position. The bank president who exercises his duties strictly for the management of the bank and does not use his position, for example, in favor of one faction as against another in a conflict or an election, is not using it for what could be power ends. Indeed, if he does not, he may not last long in his position unless he is there to buffer contending powers. We shall examine similar possibilities in our discussion of authority.

This dynamic concept of position leads us to further sources of power. A power may tap its connections with other powers--not just vertically but also horizontally and diagonally--to strengthen its own resources. Power A may call on power C for help in the A/B power relationship and return equal help to C in another context. Of course, connection and contact are sine qua non components of a power complex. In that sense, power is relational and hierarchical. According to Parsons, "While the structure of economic power is... lineally quantitative, simply a matter of more and less, that of political power is hierarchical that is, of higher and lower levels. The greater power is power over the lesser, not merely more power than the lesser."[6] This qualification implies relational comparability. It is not realistic to compare the power of a Soviet Kolkhose official in Siberia with that of the Sheikh of Ras el Kheyma or a banker in La Paz. But even where relations exist, one power situation may not imply another. For instance, it does not necessarily follow that because A is more powerful than B, and B is more powerful than C, A is more powerful than C. The nature of the relationships may not be comparable, and until A and C have become entangled in a power relationship--whether by the intermediary of B or otherwise--we cannot say that A has power over C. The A/B relationship may, for example, be professional, while the B/C relationship may be paternal or conjugal. The assumption, however, is that where power relations exist, hierarchical imperatives arise. Even the lateral mutual help relationship between distinctly autonomous power complexes will not always remain on a par and will be subject to the interplay of the whole potentials of the components.

Take, for example, A's need to persuade C that the outcome of their mutual assistance will benefit both equally. If A has good power of persuasion, he may draw a picture showing all the advantages to C, although in fact, in the long run, the outcome may profit A more. This eventuality permits us to generalize and signal out the power of persuasion as yet another source of power. For persuading B to do something profitable to A in a vertical power relationship is also one of the things A could do instead of using his force, his material means and position, or his connections.

To persuade implies the capacity to influence or to have influence. Of course, the simple fact of having influence may not involve a power relationship. To illustrate our point, suppose you told your friend in a restaurant that a certain stock was likely to rise on the market, and someone next to your table overheard your conversation and as a result bought that stock-something he would not have done otherwise. You have influenced him but you have not consciously exerted power upon him. Like other ingredients of power, only that part of influence which becomes effectively related will be part of a power complex.[7]

The influence exerted on the eavesdropper in the restaurant will depend on other factors. He may be influenced by your confident tone--in other words, your self-confidence. In general terms, self-confidence can be counted as a source of power. Its impact is evident when combined with other ingredients: force, means or position used with self-confidence, and self-confidence as a dimension of the persuasive process. The influential statement may have come from a person with charisma, which can be defined approximately as an inspirational gift. While charisma may be a characteristic in its own right, it is seldom separable from the power of persuasion and self-confidence. But it may happen that a charismatic person is not self-confident or that he inspires rather than persuades. Still in the restaurant, we may find that the eavesdropper is influenced by the speaker's reputation. He may be influenced even by the reputation of the restaurant. Suppose he is an amateur investor, lunching near Wall Street at a restaurant known as the rendezvous of financial wizards. Noticing that his neighbor acts like a habitué of the restaurant, he assumes the man to be a stock exchange expert and is therefore impressed by his words. Reputation is itself a product of the other components of power: Consider the possibilities of combining means (money and mass media) with persuasive techniques (the contents of mass media programs, based on social psychology) and, through publicity and propaganda, creating a power image.

All this suggests, in the human context, knowledge and knot-how which, beyond implying specialized skills, should include the general capacity to analyze, to evaluate and to draw appropriate conclusions for action--including timing and improvisation, as well as organization and planning. It is this general capacity that can establish the relative value of the components of power, even the intangible ones such as self-confidence and reputation. A power can combine and exploit its potentials to extents which may exceed the possibilities of any one of the components in isolation. At times action may appear as a bluff, that is, if such potentials as courage and risk-taking are not (as they should be) considered components of power. In its analysis of possibilities a power should relate its power position to another in the context of total environment. When Churchill asked his chiefs of staff on British preparedness to face the Germans, they replied: "Our conclusion is that prima facie Germany has most of the cards; but the real test is whether the morale of our fighting personnel and civil population will counterbalance the numerical and material advantages which Germany enjoys. We believe it will."[8] Later events proved them right.

A power should be able to analyze and evaluate not only its relationship with another power, but also the conflicting natures or simply different textures and shades of other powers in their relationships. Thus, one power may use different powers against each other or combine some against others in situations beneficial to itself. Great Britain remained a great power for some three centuries and into the twentieth century partly because it successfully played this balancing game in the European power complex.[9]

The range of sources of power so far presented has moved from the more elemental to the more cognizant dimensions. If, in the social context, knowledge, know-how and the capacity to analyze, evaluate and draw appropriate conclusions for action are the essential sources of power, then by implication knowledge means the power holder's knowledge about the power situation. In other words, power should be conscious of its power. To give a simple illustration, one may say that the water behind a dam is only force. Before the dam was built, the downhill flow of the river was naked force; after the dam is built, the water it holds is 'tamed force that generates electric power. But no power will be produced if the valves of the dam are not opened and the water is not permitted to become active. If there were no turbines and generators behind the valves, the movement of water would turn simply into forceful streams. It is in its contact with the turbines and generators, which put up a relative resistance but rotate under the pressure of the forceful stream, that the latter becomes effective in generating power. The power holders, however, are those who created the plus-potential by holding the water behind the dam and putting it in contact with the generator, and who decide on the distribution of electricity. The power they control is the potential energy which the high level of water holds behind the dam. Power can thus be conceptualized as the conscious plus-potential which is active, in contact and effective.[10]

* * *

As our discussion of the sources of power has unfolded, you may have noticed that these sources emanate from the socio-political phenomena we have covered in preceding chapters. Our concern is not only the direct and obvious relationship between the domination drive and power, but the elemental and yet intricate intertwining of the ingredients of power within the sociopolitical flux. If we look closely, we see, for example, that it is the combination of force and man's manipulative potentials, (considered in Chapter Nine) which can supply the means. Further, the general capacity to analyze, evaluate and draw appropriate conclusions for action, timing, improvisation, organization, planning and the consciousness imperative of power are all, of course, related to the ability to choose and to act (and when it is appropriate not to act[11]) within the total environment. But these are elementary connections and may, if taken literally, limit our conception of power. We can gain a more solid grasp and wider vision of the all-pervading phenomenon of power by looking at its relationships with the more or less abstract socio-political phenomena. Thus, when we consider such factors as connection, the power of persuasion or influence, we have to bear them in mind not simply as individual attributes but as sources emanating from and understandable within the framework of group dynamics and prevailing value systems as elaborated in our earlier chapters. In that perspective power is not exclusively nor even significantly the power of an individual but a complex whose nucleus may be, for example, an ideological movement.[12] While motor personalities, as discussed in Chapter Three, do play a role (at times crucial) in that context, their leadership should be envisioned within the complex whole.

II. The Spheres of Power

To be active, in contact and effective, power must mesh with the elements over which it has power. In the process of entanglement to gain control, those who seek domineering positions may have to confine their freedom. Power can be likened to a pyramid because at every stage of the struggle for domination only some of those at the bottom should move up, forming the narrow top strata which will dominate and "sit" on the lower strata, the wide base of power. But the pyramid of power is not a static geometric form. Its dynamics and fermentations require permanent exercise and affirmation of the powers which shore it.. Within it there will be constant contact, relation, interaction, transaction and counteraction among the action complexes which make it a whole (Fig. 10-01).

Pyramid of power

Fig 10-01

Power, if it is power, is ever evolving. We picture it here as a plain pyramid only to simplify our presentation. Like all other socio-political phenomena, power should not be visualized as a solid chunk of concrete but as a flux with every particle an interacting factor of the whole. Figuratively speaking, in its dynamics and fermentations power should possess the flexibility to transform itself, whenever appropriate, from extreme weight and rigidity to the weightlessness of a light gas. Within any relationship there is an optimum form in which power, depending on its texture, functions best. At the rigid extreme it may exercise naked force--an effective instrument under certain conditions--while under other circumstances it may diffuse and lighten its pressure over its components or opponents so that its weight may scarcely be felt, and yet it may remain in control.

The top of the pyramid sits best, of course, when it can distribute its weight evenly over the base. In political terms, this happens when the power exercises equal control and/or care over different components of its complex. Depending on its fluidity, it may have greater or lesser freedom of action when it shifts its control and/or care within a tolerable radius. In position A¹ in Fig. 10-02, the top of the pyramid is distanced from points B and C of the base and other points along the connecting lines A¹B and A¹C as compared to the A¹D line.

Fig. 10-02

A¹ either controls the A¹D area of the pyramid more or gives it more attention and care. Yet it still seems to be in balance, because in its overall situation, its relation to D compensates its distance from B and C. In position A² the power-holder seems more precarious. It is off balance and may fall. The shifting of control and emphasis by the summit of the pyramid is, of course, an involved process within the different strata of the complex. The point of pressure and support may not be uniform from top to bottom. Each point of control below the summit may have a greater or lesser radius of oscillation, depending on its viscosity. There are, within the complex, "proximate policy makers," [13]i.e., those who exercise or are delegated to exercise power at different levels and sectors of the pyramid and thus share the power of the summit (Fig. 10-03).

Fig. 10-03

Again, power is presented schematically as a uniform pyramid for the sake of simplicity. For closer analysis we may examine a specific section of the pyramid in detail, making abstraction of the rest. For a concrete example, let us apply our model to the last three Democratic presidential campaigns in the U. S. A. We may see that the upper strata of Senator Eugene McCarthy's (A) power complex (Fig. 10-04) in 1968 reveals his great dependence on "radical" elements (D).

Fig. 10-04

These elements, who were off base as far as the Democratic party apparatus was concerned (B¹C¹D¹), contributed to his failure to win the party's nomination at the Chicago convention, which was dominated by party regulars and union representatives (B and C). In this limited study, abstraction is made of the power base, the Democratic voting population of the United States (B²C²D²). In 1972, Senator George McGovern won the Democratic party presidential nomination because the "radical" elements within the party apparatus had become substantial enough to override the party regulars and union leaders. But then the party went off base as far as the Democratic voting population of the country was concerned. In 1976, Jimmy Carter's campaign machinery as one component of the Democratic apparatus moved up the pyramid, despite some "stop Jimmy Carter" efforts within the party, and won the election more on its appeal to the popular base rather than by an all-out Democratic party campaign.

Power has the possibility not only to oscillate within a radius on a plane as in Fig. 10-02, but to compress or dilate, thus creating a more compact or expanded relationship among its components (see Fig. 10-05).

Fig. 10-05

It may compress when it needs better control of a situation or when the components require a closer relationship to give better cohesion to the whole. The compression may also take place at the base and the power-holder may, or may have to, relinquish some grounds in order to keep the same angle of power within the remaining components; otherwise a compression from the top, without reducing the surface of the bottom, will flatten the power-holder's controlling position. Flattening implies reduction of power components, such as a reverse process in a cumulative economy which, if continued to the extreme, could revert to a subsistence level where, as we saw in Chapter Three, there will be few ingredients for building a substantial power pyramid. The model applies to such a variety of instances as the retreat and regrouping of an army, the retrenchment of a business, or reduction in the international commitments of a nation.

The dilation may occur when a condensation within the complex calls for the easing of power controls. It may also be a prelude to an elation of power strata preparing for further expansion. But an elation without possibilities for expansion at the base, distancing the upper-strata of the power complex from the base, may reduce its stability. For example, in the 1960's de Gaule played superpower foreign policy without adequate means, remaining aloof from certain crucial French domestic problems. The result was dissatisfaction and alienation of some sectors of his popular base, culminating in the 1968 events and the uprising of the students.

Shifts, compressions or dilations of power create different relationships and ratios within the power complex, upsetting the prevailing habituations, frustrations and expectations, and perhaps eventually changing its nature and course. A party leadership which starts to emphasize workers' rights will eventually embrace more the ideologies of trade unionism and socialism than those of free enterprise and conservative land ownership. The shift may take place because of a prior trade unionist penetration into the party leadership (see Fig. 10-06), or because party policy-makers, although not of trade unionist origin themselves, may have detected favorable grounds among the workers. In the latter case, if the emphasis persists, the party's rank-and-file may gradually be penetrated by trade unionist elements.

Fig. 10-06

In general terms, growing emphasis on the role of certain sectors of the power complex may amount to the passage of some power potentials to those sectors- a trend which may not be reversible and which may eventually change the power relationship patterns or even the nature of the power complex. A father who permits his son to use the family car, both to make the son more useful in doing family errands and to give his son more liberty, will have less control over the car than before. It will be difficult to revert to the earlier situation and prohibit his son's use of the car without compensation or friction. Similarly, the industrialist who, after having run his enterprise on the basis of his individual will and decision-making, agrees to consider the views of the workers, will have a hard time reverting to individual rule. But his recognition of the workers' views, although changing the power relationship, may create more interest and incentive in the workers, increase production, and in the long run give the industrialist possibilities of expansion. It has, nevertheless, changed the power relationship within the pyramid.

In dilation of a power complex, the sum total of control is not reduced but diffused and dispersed among the different strata and components of the complex. The liberalization of the Catholic Church ever since John XXIII and Paul VI gave new vigor and credibility to the faith, but at the same time made open dissent among the clergy possible on such matters as birth control. Khrushchev's recognition of the possibility of national roads to socialism (which Tito had advocated) loosened the lid which Stalin had placed tightly over Eastern Europe. It resulted in the uprising in Hungary and later liberalizations in other Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union had to use force in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia to maintain its control and power. In this case the controlled elements in a situation of dilation moved towards disintegrating the very power structure itself. But in the process of liberalization, the relationship of the Soviet Union with the socialist countries of Eastern Europe changed. Even after military occupation of Hungary and Czechoslovakia (and in the case of Rumania, whose integrity it respected more), the Soviet power did not impose its total will on a party and a people which had undertaken a new direction. The dilation created by de-Stalinization within the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe diffused to some extent the power which had until then been quasi-totally held by the Soviet Union. In exchange, despite its military interventions, the Soviet Union gained influence among the Third World countries and even in the Western world. One may argue that the Soviet Union would have gained even greater influence in other parts of the world had it not used naked force against the deviations in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But timing and dosage of the use of power and its dilation or compression are complicated. Had the Soviet Union not intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the dispersion and diffusion of power may have had consequences which would have changed beyond recognition the very nature of Soviet power. Such alteration could not have taken place solely in the relationship and ratio of control within that power complex, but also in relation to factors beyond it and potentially detrimental to its very existence.

Combining the different dimensions of power dynamics as illustrated by pyramidal configurations in the last pages, we may, by superimposing Figs. 10-1, 10-02, 10-03 and 10-05, visualize a power complex as a sphere with the power nucleus at its center of gravity (see Fig. 10-07). The power complex thus represented will resemble the physical illustration of atomic structures.

Fig. 10-07

Let us remember, however, that power within the human context has its complicated laws of fermentation and dynamics and is not, with our present knowledge of electronic and mechanical phenomena, easily and simply reducible to an illustration of an atom. Accordingly, if we were to use the atomic model to illustrate it, we would at least have to add to it loops, broken lines and zigzags! If you look closely at Fig. 10-07, you will notice that some such possibilities have been incorporated, with our apologies to the atomic scientists.

But above all, the point made earlier about the necessity for contact implies that power, in human social terms, is perceivable only in relation to other power complexes. Power, whether individual or social, does not operate in vacuo. In the social context, when a power complex becomes so close-knit as to retire into a shell, with the domineering and dominated components absolutely consumed in their relational circuit, the totality that ensues should be taken into account as one entity which may have enclosed potential power but which is not realized until it encounters other power complexes. It is like a body in good physical and psychological health in which the kidney and the nose each perform their functions as part of the whole and do not exercise power over each other. In order to exist as power, that body should come into contact with its environment, i.e., spheres of other powers. In a vacuum it is as good as dead.

Power is a relationship. It involves domination and submission. Even in the personal power relationship between parents and child, what remains outside that particular complex is apt to create other power relations. Beyond the limitations and permissions of the parent-child relationship, the child fits into other environmental situations. His relationship with his peers or even his imaginary domination of his toys or his pet engender attitudes often influencing his behavior in the parent-child complex. But this is an extreme example. In the social context power complexes operate promiscuously. They often overlap and interpenetrate each other and, in their spherical dynamics, conflict, cohabit, compromise or cooperate. Vacuums do not remain vacuums. When the United Kingdom, moving to compress its area of control after the components of its power had thinned out, announced its withdrawal from the east of the Suez Canal, the expanding U. S., U. S. S. R. and other local powers prepared to take over.

In the struggle for domination and power, the hierarchy of complexes does not organize itself without clashes, gropings, repeated encounters, perseverance and challenges. Clashes may keep some contenders aloof from each other, in which case no power relationship is established between them. The power that can be generated will depend on the combination of the domineering and submitting factors and the extent to which they fuse and amalgamate. As we examine the relational nature of power, it seems that power cannot be conceived alone. It needs at least two components, power and its antimony. In the social context the consciousness of power will tend to call for the consciousness of the elements over which it has power. What is the power which is not challenged? Like Caligula, power may push its docile subjects to the brink of revolt in order to feel their resistance and thus feel itself.[14]

Power, then, is conditional to resistance to such an extent that it cannot be conceived without it. In the words of Solzhenitsyn, "You are strong only as long as you don't deprive people of everything. For a person you've taken everything from is no longer in your power."[15] It follows that the resistance to power may be external or internal in varying degrees and that in the absence of a relatively external challenge, in order to substantiate its dynamics, power will ferment resistance from within. Indeed, the fermentation for resistance should not start only when the comparatively foreign challenge has ceased; its germs should be ever present within the power so that power does not cease to exist when the external challenge is absent. This existential relational nature of power thus implies that resistance is part and parcel of power, without which it may collapse or rot. Lord Acton's "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,"[16] is not a moral maxim but an empirically conceptualizable statement.

The recognition of resistance as a component of power reverts us to such socio-political dimensions as the domination drive and its potentials for spiralling into an end in itself, or group dynamics with different degrees of integration and possibilities of overintegration and disintegration, or, still, the attitude of group members within a spectrum from conformity to revolt. In other words, power as the engendered energy of culture should not be conceived as a locomotive pulling the train of culture along the tracks. Power complexes in their inter- and intradynamics and fermentations present different degrees of integration and entanglement which may at times cancel each other out, leaving a culture with its internecine power conflicts having little energy. It is the consciousness of power complexes within a culture about the potentials of power as the raw material for socio-political organization, and the way power components and complexes involved in a culture are stratified and their integrative and competitive potentials actualized, that gives a culture its impulse. That consciousness is the strain within a culture which we shall identify as political culture, the subject of our next chapter.