Fundamentals of Power
An attempt at understanding power
Myth of an Apolitical Era, Myth of an Apolitical Possibility
Understanding Power is the primary task for any political thought to progress. There are a lot of misunderstandings among modern traditionalists and even many liberals about our pre-modern past. Chief one among them is the myth that "there was no politics in old times".
The only difference between traditionalists and modern liberals on this myth is that traditionalists see it as a definitely positive thing, while liberals see it as just the opposite. But this difference of views over this myth is pretty pointless when it is a myth in the first place. It's like arguing over whether a unicorn has a black horn or white horn when there is no unicorn.
The root of this myth lies in our limited understanding of the very word "politics" itself. Whether one goes by the book or common sense, when we think of politics, we only think of it in our popular modern context. And hence, the only politics we are conscious of is "electoral politics", we unconsciously conclude that since there were no elections, there was no politics. We fail to think of politics outside the conceptual box of elections.
This means we need to redefine politics in a broader sense to grasp our historical reality. So how about:
Politics is the art and science of power contests and power relations. it is the theory and practice of acquiring and maintaining power over others in any given domain.
I think this broad definition is more helpful because contrary to the general understanding of the term:
it does not restrict politics to the domain of government. And that's a good thing, there is politics within non-governmental institutions even. There is "office politics" within any given bureaucratic organization, even private offices. There is "family politics" among relatives who struggle among themselves for a greater piece of inheritance, There is politics within and among sports teams, and so on...
None of these are necessarily government institutionsThis definition does not restrict it to the phenomena of elections which means politics can exist among groups that do not hold any elections amongst themselves, at least not the formal kind of elections.
It separates politics from the notions of governance/administration/management etc, allowing them to be fields of their own rather than mixing them up with politics and creating conceptual confusion.
Most trads who wish for monarchy are actually wishing for absolutism, They just dont know what they are wishing for because they lack the knowledge, vocabulary, and articulation to express what they actually desire. It can be lost in translation and their listeners are going to misunderstand them.
There were majorly two types of monarchy in history, as categorized by historians:
Absolute monarchy
Aristocratic Monarchy or Feudal Monarchy
Absolute Monarchy was when the monarch was powerful like a dictator and his lords were dependent on him.
Aristocratic monarchy was when the King/Emperor became dependent on his lords/kings instead. Hence, when nobles as a collective are more powerful than royalty.
Unfortunately, most monarchies, whether in Europe, India, or anywhere else, were not absolutist, but aristocratic. Aristocratic monarchies were more common than absolutist ones because absolutism required monarchs with great command to overwhelm an entire nobility on their own. Such men have always been rare in history. The bigger the Kingdom/Empire, the Rarer the Absolutism.
There is a fundamental rule of politics "Nobody rules alone", which means that you rule because somebody else wants you to rule. You need supporters. Even if you are not living in a democratic system, you still need somebody's support to rule. After all, politics is a social science. There is no political system without societal arrangements of some sort.
Hence, even a monarch or a dictator rules because someone wants him to rule. Now why would anyone want somebody else to rule? Why doesnt our society descend into a war of all against all out of pure selfishness to rule over others? because ruling is hard, it is risky, it is costly. Ruling means responsibility and monarchy is too much of a responsibility. All crowns are crowns of thorns. The bigger the crown, the more its thorns. People want somebody else to rule because they want to shirk responsibilities. They don’t want to be blamed if anything goes wrong, even if by accident.
I know the Spiderman line sounds corny but it’s closer to the truth than most realize: With great power, comes great responsibility. Everyone wants power, but nobody wants responsibility. And it is almost impossible to seek power without having to face responsibility one way or another. A lot of leaders try to avoid responsibility, but sooner or later, in one form or another, the responsibility comes to collect its due. Greater the power, you seek, greater the risk you will have to take. Greater the risk, greater the glory if you win, but also the greater disgrace if you lose.
Higher in the hierarchy you are, greater the responsibility you hold. Responsibility ultimately manifests itself in two forms when simplified: Credit and Blame, everyone wants the former when things are going great but nobody wants the latter when shit hits the fan. A supreme leader has to hold the supreme responsibility. Even if he doesn't want to, society will compel him to. After all that is the main reason they made him the supremo in first place.
Everyone at the subordinate level can pass the buck and blame the higher-ups, and rightly so most of the time. But not the supreme leader, the buck stops at him. In the public eye during times of success, he will get ultimate the credit, but he will also get the ultimate blame during times of failure.
For example: Before 2014 elections, Rajnath was the biggest leader from the biggest state of the country that BJP had after Atal, Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi were thrown out of the picture under the pretext of their seniority. Then why did he allow himself to be steamrolled by two men from Gujarat? Because he was afraid of the risk. he didn’t want the responsibility in case of loss in UP.
So who are these people who make the monarch a ruler? Unlike democracy, its not everyone of course. it’s the nobles. The reason any kind of governance exists at all is because humans do not fight alone, and they do not fight everyone else. They come together to cooperate with each other, and bind themselves under a leader, to rule upon others not as individuals, but as a class: the ruling class. As Hannah Arendt said:
‘Power’ corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is ‘in power’ we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with (potestas in populo, without a people or group there is no power), disappears, ‘his power’ also vanishes.
The concept of borrowed vs owned power is helpful in understanding this distinction between absolute vs aristocratic monarchy.
In absolutism, the King is the owner, and his noblemen are the borrowers.
In aristocracy, nobles are the owners and the kings are the borrowers.
PS: Absolutism vs. Feudalism is not a strict binary but a spectrum, and it wasn't always one way or the other but mostly somewhere in between. These terms were not used in historical times; they were created by historians to explain what happened in historical times to modern audiences.
Throughout history, a monarch and his nobles have been involved in an undeclared tug-of-war for power.
Clausewitz, a Prussian general and arguably the most noted modern military theorist once stated "War is a continuation of politics by other means" These other means he was indicating were violent ones of course. And just like war, the phenomena of politics also stems from people having different opinions. As long as there are different people, there will be different opinions, and as long as there are different opinions, there will be politics. In one form or another.
Since we have defined politics based on power contests and power relations rather than defining it based on governments and elections to further our understanding of politics, the next obvious step is to further our understanding of this concept of power.
The message that I’m trying to convey here is that romanticizing a certain kind of past will not lead to an escape from politics. There was politics in the past and there is no escape from it in the future either.
The Source Of Power Is Not The Power In Itself
Just like politics gets conflated or confused with other concepts, so does power. here are 4 common ways power gets confused with other stuff mostly:
Popularity is power
Wealth is power
Knowledge is power
Violence is power
These four common misconceptions about power, are common for a reason. They aren't exactly correct but still somewhat close to reality. However, we are looking for a bit more clarity here
For precision, we should go by the simple tautology of "Power is Power" and avoid confusing it with other related concepts.
Political science is a social science, hence the power we are discussing here is power in the social domain. Power is a social construct. But to apply an analogy with physical science, think of power here as similar to electrical power. How do you generate power? You burn fuel, heat water with it, convert water to steam, and use pressurized steam to run a turbine, which generates electricity.
Whatever the fuel(oil/gas/coal/nuclear) is a source of power, Not power in itself. Coal is not running inside your house wires. Fuel is not circulating in your phone as you read this.
Similarly, wealth, violence, popularity, knowledge etc can be sources of power, but are not power in itself. They are means, not ends, They just have potential, and exploiting that potential is upto the factors besides themselves.
In 2016, Hillary spent about double on election campaigns compared to Trump. And yet, Trump won. Reason? It is not all about how much you spend but also how you spend it. Clinton and her campaign team spent most of their resources on appealing to voters who were already on their side rather than appealing to constituents who needed to be brought in from the other side. You can waste your wealth as a resource, without getting power in return.
Wealth is not power. It can not be considered power’s equivalent because it doesn't automatically transform itself into power in a guaranteed way.
A lot of people confuse money = power. This is why they end up with fallacies such as "Jews run the world" or Ambani/Adani run India. Spoiler alert: they don’t. This misconception happens because people have a bad understanding of what power is. Surely money can be invested to gain power, but that does not guarantee that such an investment will pay off, all investments are bets of course. Money can be a source of power, but that doesn't make it a guarantee.
Similarly, knowledge isn't power either.
If there is any concept that comes closest to being synonymous with power. It isn't wealth, violence, knowledge, etc but freedom.
When John Locke phrased "Life, liberty, and property" there is a reason he put life and liberty before the property, putting things in that order meant something. Freedom is power over yourself. Power is freedom for yourself and then some more...
Of course one can strive for wealth and power simultaneously, but if one has to choose only one among the two, a wise man would always pick the latter unless it is a very desperate situation. When you retain power, wealth always follows even if with a delay. But if you forego power, all your wealth will always be a borrowed asset, and you will never have the leverage to bargain to your liking.
What is Power?
Is power a measure of how much area you occupy? Is power about where your currency circulates? Is power the measure of geographical area?
To recognize the real elites, you need to define what elites are known for: Power.
Just as you need to define power to define politics itself, and this definition of power has to be precise enough not to be confused or equated with wealth or knowledge or something else like that. Meaning of power is by default social in nature here. And society is never made of one man alone. What I'm trying to say here is that power can only be compared between two separate independent entities, whether individuals or groups.
Imagine a world like that of Robinson Crusoe, a single man on an island. Take it further and think of a single man in the entire universe. Is he powerful? Who knows? Who cares? How can anybody tell? He lives alone! Power has no social context here to be evaluated.
However, in a hypothetical world of two people: now we can compare. One can exert his will over the other, ie one might have power over the other, the concept of power has come into being here.
Wealth on the other hand can be theoretically free from social context by it's ability to be pure material in nature. You might be alone on an island. But being alone with all the modern amenities like housing, irrigation, and machinery would be very different from being alone in pure virgin nature where you must survive from scratch. This is why you can have a concept of wealth without the concept of power, through material conditions.
Power is always, as we would say, a power potential and not an unchangeable, measurable and reliable entity like force or strength. While strength is the natural quality of an individual seen in isolation, power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.
-Arendt (1958, p. 200)
The concept of power stems from social interaction. It takes two to clap, at least. Hence, the deciding difference between wealth and power is that Wealth is a non-zero-sum game. It can be created or destroyed, not just distributed or contested. Two parties can grow rich together without affecting any third party negatively at all. A non-zero-sum game can go in both net-positive and net-negative directions.
Power is the ability to influence others to your will without getting influenced by their will in return as much as possible. Power is the ability to negotiate in your favor. Power is the ability to exert will without being exerted back.
Hence, power as opposed to wealth is zero-sum by default. Two parties are either on equal footing, or one of them is more powerful than the other. If both grow powerful together, they have to be growing powerful over a third party instead.
Rules for Individuals and Groups are different
People often make the mistake of assuming that a power contest between individuals works out the same way a power contest may work in between groups, but that’s not necessarily the case. The same thing that works for an individual may not work for a group, and vice versa. The traits that make an individual powerful may come at the cost of the group he belongs to while the things that make a group powerful might cost members of the group. The conflation of the power mechanics of the two as the same is seen quite often, and I plan to elaborate on why they are not the same.
We will continue this topic further in future essays, for now, this should be sufficient enough.