This is a book which I thought deserved a thread here---
The Anatomy of Power
by John Kenneth Galbraith (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1983) 206pp
I'm a fan of the late economist and author John Kenneth Galbraith's writing, and in this book he analyzes what he identifies as the instruments and sources of power, and how they work together. I find the ideas useful, and an understanding of them might be critical to the success of any social/political movement.
Galbraith's "anatomy" might seem self-evident on the surface, but as he so rightly points out:
"Few words are used so frequently with so little seeming need to reflect on their meaning as power...Not many get through a conversation without a reference to power...None of these and the myriad other references to power is ever thought to require explanation...It is because power has such a commonsense meaning* that it is used so often with so little seeming need for definition."
* Galbraith cites Max Weber's basic definition of power: “the possibility of imposing one’s will upon the behavior of other persons.”
Briefly, then, here are the main instruments and sources of power as JKG sees them:
Three Instruments of Power:
Condign Power: Essentially punishment or threat of punishment. Crude, but often effective in its way.
“Condign power wins submission by the ability to impose an alternative to the preferences of the individual or group that is sufficiently unpleasant or painful so that these preferences are abandoned. There is an overtone of punishment. The expected rebuke is usually too harsh, so the individual will endure, submit, or give into the power from fear or threat. The individual is aware of the submission via compulsion.”
Compensatory Power: We all need money, and like to be noticed and get things for "free," right?
“Compensatory power, in contrast, wins submission by the offer of affirmative reward---by the giving of something of value to the individual so submitting. Payments, share, praise, money for services. The individual is aware of the submission for a reward.”
Conditioned Power: Now we're talkin' about some real *juice*---
“...a common feature of both condign and compensatory power that the individual submitting is aware of his or her submission---in the one case compelled and in the other for reward.Conditioned power, in contrast, is exercised by changing belief. Persuasion, education, or the social commitment to what seems natural, proper, or right causes the individual to submit to the will of another or of others. The submission reflects the preferred course; the fact of submission is not recognized. Conditioned power, more than condign or compensatory power, is central...to the functioning of the modern economy and polity, and in capitalist and socialist countries alike.”
Now... "Behind these three instruments for the exercise of power lie":
The Three Sources of Power: Personality, Property, and Organization
Personality:
“Personality---leadership in the common reference---is the quality of physique, mind, speech, moral certainty, or other personal trait that gives access to one or more of the instruments of power.”
Property:
“Property or wealth conveys an aspect of authority, a certainty of purpose, and this can invite conditioned submission. But its principal association, quite obviously, is with compensatory power. Property---income---provides the wherewithal to purchase submission.”
...Now again saving the biggie for last---Galbraith says organization, surpassing even money (gasp!), is far and away the strongest source of power:
Organization:
“Organization, the most important source of power in modern societies, has its foremost relationship with conditioned power. It is taken for granted that when an exercise of power is sought or needed, organization is required.”
Galbraith says this is The Age of Organization and the "modern great corporations" have advanced organizational power to an unprecedented level, concentrating wealth, conditioning consumers and effectively influencing government policy to their favor etc.
While primary relationships exist between instrument and source (e.g. organization's primary relationship is to conditioned power), there are of course "numerous combinations of the sources of power and the related instruments...the disentangling of the sources and instruments in any particular exercise of power, the assessment of their relative importance, and consideration of the changes in relative importance over time are the tasks of this book." Generally speaking, the stronger an organization's internal discipline, the stronger its external effect.
The greatest danger, he says, comes from the combination of militarism and corporate power.
"The modern military establishment strongly concentrates power. It exacts a high level of submission from a large number of individuals within the organization, and in symmetrical fashion it exacts an equivalent obedience outside. The modern large corporation expects and receives a high degree of conformity from the many in its management. And its property resources accord it an extensive command over the many it employs. From this flows an extensive submission by the citizenry and by the state. As in the case of the military, the purpose of the great business enterprise, the ideas that sustain it, are largely, though not quite completely, above debate."
There is, however, says Galbraith, always a countervailing exercise of power---e.g., capital abuses labor, spawns a countering labor movement, colonialism spawns insurgency etc. etc.
So..... there's hope (er, ack!). He ends the last chapter with a note of encouragement, and a caution:
"No one in a democracy should be in doubt as to the real effectiveness of organized opposition to concentrated power. But all must have an acute understanding of the weakness arising from the diffusion of power and the difference between illusion and practical effect.
"Let us, where corporate or military power is exercised, recognize that effective consolidation of the countering power, not diffusion and competition as between many opposing organizations, is a major, indeed absolute, essential."
Any comments about this would be appreciated. What I got out of the book was a sharper sense of the degree to which conditioning/conditioned power molds thinking and shapes society, and the certainty that organization and conditioning, not mere wealth, are the keystones of corporate power---and also its main antidote. And to really 'change the system' (or pick one---banking system, health system etc.) conditioning must be countered with conditioning---in a sense, there's some de-programming to be done.
Galbraith wrote with a delightfully dry wit; I remember getting a big grin every few pages at one of his choice sarcasms. He wasn't shy about declaring straight out, "I am a socialist." I don't always agree with him (price controls?...I'm not crazy about the idea) but I think he was brilliant and he had entertaining ways of explaining economics (besides his numerous books, in the ''70s he wrote and "starred" in a BBC TV series about economics).
