POWER CONTROLS
Problem and Rationale
Finding new forms of control of power in a sustainable model of economy and governance is critical; the corruption of people and institutions in power is seen by many as a major reason for the current crisis. (‘Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely’). The issue is a difficult and complex one because society is traditionally organized according to rules of power, and because power is intricately connected with freedom -- as in ‘empowerment’, with society’s ability to engage in projects that cannot be achieved by individuals alone, and with the need to ensure that agreements, laws, treaties are adhered to. So there is a permanent dilemma: on the one hand, the human ‘right’ of freedom implies that individuals naturally seek ‘empowerment’ -- power,-- and on the other hand the temptations of the powerful to abuse power must be controlled, constrained -- which of course is perceived as diminishing their freedom. The issues of how to establish that balance may need to be examined in view of finding new tools, since the traditional instruments for the control of power appear to have reached the limits of their effectiveness. Discussion of these issues have focused on different starting points: the problems associated with power, traditional instruments for controlling power, and understanding of its nature as a prerequisite for refining existing or devising better instruments.
The nature and types of power.
The term covers many different kinds of power; For the purpose of this discussion, the type of power of interest here is what Wikipedia lists under ‘Social Science’, including
- Power (philosophy), the ability to control one's environment or other entities
- Political power: power over the administration of public resources
- Power in international relations: power wielded by politicians in international relations;
- Power (communication): the capacity of an individual or a group to exert their will over others;
- Economic power, a concept in economics for which there is no agreed upon definition;
- Purchasing power: the ability of any amount of money to buy goods and services;
Monopoly power, the ability an individual or company to set prices or wages;
Bargaining power, the ability of players in a bargaining game to influence the outcome;
Managerial power, the ability of managers to threaten employees with penalties for not following orders;
Class power, in Marxism, a situation where a minority controls the means of production and is able to exploit.
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Not sufficiently well covered under these definitions is the ‘empowerment’ aspect (except in the very abstract ‘philosophical concept of ‘ability to control one’s environment’): individuals must be empowered to exercise their freedoms -- that is, they must be able to control and effectively use the resources required, and be free of constraints (legal, economic, social, psychological etc.) to do so. One major purpose of society can be seen as that of increasing the empowerment of its citizens.
Problems of power
The problem of power most often discussed is the susceptibility of people in power to ‘corruption’, understood as using the positions of power given to them in the societal structure to pursue their individual interests and advantages rather than that of society -- often to the dramatic detriment of other members of society -- in violating the rules and agreements they are supposed to enforce in others.
Seen as particularly damaging is the tendency of power-holders to seek ever greater powers, in response to the fear of having their abuse of power exposed and punished.
The dilemma of power
To the extent societies rely on ‘enforcement’ of agreements, laws and rules deemed necessary for their proper functioning -- that is, of seeking to prevent violation of laws by the threat of imposing sanctions and penalties by enforcement agencies that necessarily must have greater force than any individual or entity that might be tempted to violating rules -- that very enforcement agency will be more intensely exposed to temptations of abuse because there is no greater power to prevent it from doing so. This issue is becoming particularly controversial with regard to the establishment of international government entities: the fear of a ‘world government’ with absolute powers generates understandable opposition even to entities such as the UN that have been carefully designed to hold rather limited powers, a least initially.
Empowerment as a condition of freedom
‘Freedom’ can be understood as having essentially two dimensions:
a) Freedom ‘TO’ do things, pursue happiness, etc. and
b) Freedom ‘FROM’ forces, rules, constraints on (a).
Constraints of type (b) are not only ‘natural’ conditions -- the laws of nature, individuals’ own limitations of bodily and mental strength, skills, abilities, but also societal rules and laws that are justified as devices to prevent some person’s free pursuit of their interest to become unacceptable constraints to other people’s freedom -- but often are perceived to extend far beyond that justification. The reason is that the quest for freedom ‘TO’ , or control of one’s environment often extends to the desire to control other people’s behavior (ostensibly part of one’s environment): to get other people to do things they don’t wish to do. The boundaries between these empowerment conditions will always be a source of controversy and conflict.
Power as an essential condition for effective collective action
Power as a human need?
Considering both the aspect of empowerment to exercise freedom, and the apparently pervasive tendency of humans to seek and keep power, it may be useful to consider power a kind of human need -- one that must be provided (like food, shelter etc.) but not necessarily as a free commodity. The possibility of ‘charging’ for or having people ‘earn’ power may open new possibilities for controlling power.
Possible new tools for controlling power
The aim will be the establishment of power controls that will prevent the development of a power structure with the ability to become dominant enough to override legitimate concerns and interests of minorities or assume absolute power. Whether this can be achieved by refinement and more effective application of traditional means or require new forms of control is open for discuss; both avenues should be explored. The following will focus on the latter.
Efforts to improve the tools for control of power and secure a sustainable balance of freedom and power at all levels might consider the following strategies:
1 Development and implementation of better measures of performance [>> Section 21 Measures of performance], that consider the range, quality and value of freedoms and opportunities at all levels of society -- not just overall measures of purely economic performance such as GNP that ignore the distribution of freedoms (opportunities for choosing among different attractive experiences, activities, ways of life) across all levels. The extent to which government should be charged -- and its performance measured -- not only with ‘protection’ functions and basic infrastructure but actively increasing the range and value of opportunities available to citizens (including opportunities for creating new experiences) deserves discussion.
2 Recognizing that to the extent power (the exact borderline between ‘empowerment’ and ‘power to dominate’ being a matter for discussion) can be considered a human ‘need’, provisions might have to be developed for on the one hand securing a base level of meeting that need for all members of society, but like consumption beyond the basic necessities for life, health, shelter etc. having power seekers ‘pay’ for meeting more advanced ‘domination-favored’ levels of power. Such payment may involve alternative currencies, such as 'civic credits' [See section 27 Civic Credits]
3 One provision might be to establish a ‘dual’ societal system [See section 28 Dual Economy] in which every citizen is, in a sense, a public ‘employee’ who thus can work on common infrastructure provision and maintenance tasks, and is automatically and continually enrolled in basic health care, educational, insurance, retirement programs etc. This provides individuals a basic security protection against exploitation that is currently threatened by the prospect of losing one’s job.
4 The admission to positions of power might be linked to a requirement of candidates for such positions depositing an ‘investment’ -- which ideally would be a currency consisting not of money but of credit points earned, say, with work and services in the public work sector (3 above, in addition to basic life subsistence compensation). [See Section 27 Civic credits] These points would be ‘used up’ as investments with each significant power decision or action, and lost if the decision resulted in an unsuccessful or detrimental outcome, but can earn more credit points ‘income’ or profit if successful.
5 With regard to the ‘enforcement’ of agreements and rules at every level of society, the system of enforcement by a bigger, stronger, more powerful agency pursuing and punishing violators should be replaced by a system of ‘automatically activated sanctions triggered by the very attempt to violate an agreement, rule, or law. [See section 24 Sanctions]
6 Basic ethics education could be focused more specifically on the problem of power.
Recommendation:
Research and discussion of improved power control tools should be pursued with priority, possibly complemented by actual experiments in 'innovation project communities' [See section 16 Innovation Zones].
Power control