Wolfgang WoppererNotesEssays

Power

#concept #stub・18 mentions

At its core, political or social power is a System’s ability to influence the behaviour of other systems.

This means power is a relational property of systems. One level up, out of power relationships systems of power emerge, i.e. constellations of relationships between people, resource, institutions and social positions that are object to Cultural Evolution:

Systems of relationships themselves can in turn become related (the earlier relationships now becoming the relata in a new relationship), thus evolving into systems of ever higher level relationships with creative new properties of their own.Juarrero (1998), 240–241

These systems have power in a very literal sense: they influence their components’ (people’s, institutions’) behaviour by acting as Constraints, i.e. reducing their degrees of freedom.This is a) close to the idea of structural power and b) connects a systems view of power with the republican conception of freedom as non-domination.

It is therefore more than just metaphorical to speak of power as an actor itself.

References

A Basic Income Secures Political Freedom

Political Freedom is non-domination.

Antiracism Needs Positive Discrimination

Racism is a justification for exploitation, which means at its core are structural disadvantages and severe Power imbalances.

Colonialism and Capitalism Form a Feedback Loop

From Colonisation to Early Capitalism Colonisation can be seen as an expansion of the supply zones of European citiesDeLanda (2011) , “the original European solution to the ‘ghost acreage’ question”Tooze (2022) .

Concepts Are Compressed Models

A Concept is an interface to expose and connect some Models’ salient features.

Epistemic Colonialism

Epistemic colonialism is the use of Power to force a System of thought, often an Ideology, onto an area of thought and a population of thinkers that have every right to organise and be organised differently to deal adequately with their specific experiential context.

Fascism

“Fascism“ can refer to a historical political movement and to a political Ideology.

Freedom Is Non Domination

Our intuitions about what constitutes liberty or political freedom are best captured by the so-called republican conception of freedom.

Ideology

Ideology is “a Cultural Technē gone wrong”:Haslanger (2021), 28.

Institutions Lose Legitimacy in a Feedback Loop

Zuboff (2021) describes why the legitimacy of Institutions is essential for social stability: [The] ongoing miracle of social order rests on “common sense Knowledge,” which is “the knowledge we share with others in the normal self-evident routines of everyday life.

Patriarchy Is a Product of Agriculture

Patriarchy is not an inevitable consequence of human nature.

Racism Is a Justification for Exploitation

Contrary to what we’ve learned in school, it wasn't racist ideas, born from ignorance and hate, that led to racist policies, but exactly the other way round.

Revolutions Try to Force Systems into Imaginary Attractors

All political revolutionaries imagine a future constellation of their society and, if and when they succeed in disrupting the old system, use Power to implement the new one.

Science Can Be Criticised Scientifically

Science can be understood and criticised on a variety of levels.

Stakeholder Map

Stakeholder Maps help identify and classify actors who have Power over and/or interest in the outcomes of a Project or Product development.

Strategy Is a Learning Process

Strategy is de facto always an iterative learning process, even if this is often not made explicit and information gaps between iterations make it less effective and efficient.

Strategy Is a Pattern of Actions

On an abstract level, Strategy is a set of System activities, structured in a process.

System Change Needs Disruption, Popular Support and Alternative Institutions

Climate and Ecological Breakdown is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, with civilisational Collapse an increasingly realistic outcome.

There Never Were Socialist States

There never were socialist states.