Power as Deal Doing

I've spoken before about how dialogue is crucial to the functioning of power. More recently I've tried to lay out some of the more objective features of power in such a way as to make them appear as the positives they can be.


I want to talk a little about power as the act of compromise, as the capacity to bring differing needs and requirements together so that the parties involved can all achieve some limited realisation of their ends. This may appear idealistic, especially if ones reads history books. I'd suggest this is because history is written by those who, in the end, get a dominating role in shaping our narratives. The truth is I'm aware I'm proposing a scheme of power that only really has room to flourish within a stable society. I'd propose though that the creation of stability for the sake of communities should be the end of power in itself. Creation of stability is an adroit phrase and it hides the real details - the need for physical requirements to be met, the space for dialogue, the safety for people to express differences over time without being quashed etc.


The reality is that stability like this isn't static but is an oscillating equilibrium (or more likely equilibria as there'll be numerous spots at which temporary stabilities emerge.) and even this should be seen as something which will come and go, sometimes mapping to greater parts of communities than at other times.


The existence of power within this kind of framework isn't then just the expression of individual will to achieve an end, it is the living of relationships (even where that relationship is destructive and can potentially end in the death of all parties). Of course I'm spreading the net widely here, talking about all sorts of broad concepts when really I'd like to be particular about the here and now and the societies I'm a part of.

The reason I want to focus on a particular aspect is because otherwise we're in danger of the content being so broad as to be meaningless.

I'm interested in the nature of power in societies where the State and its agents effectively have the monopoly on the exercise of violence and that that monopoly is part of the contract between the people and the executive. i.e. stable democracies where the military is an organ of the ruling class not an independent power in its own right.

In this kind of society, like our own power is typically invisible - as discussed in the past. When raw power must express itself it is generally because the channels complex societies have put into place for its routing and self-discipline have failed. Failed either to offer the participants suitable routes for resolving their issues or because the issues are not ones evisaged by the current relationships and the channels they use to express themselves and their content.

One of my main fascinations is that beyond the popular idea that power is for obtaining what one wants at other people's expense is the fact that in real politics power is typically used to obtain something in the face of competing demands. To that extent the most effective power users are those who not only focus on the immediate item but act within the framework of possible future requirements and the agents who may then require negotiating with.

The concept of political capital can be summed up using an financial analogy: I have £100. If I want things I need to spend my money (or political capital). I can spend it all now but then what will I have for the future? Nothing. It leaves me penniless and unable to deal with what may come tomorrow. Instead the most effective use of my money - in most situations - is to use some now but invest some to insure I have income in the future. In the same way effective users of power ensure that they use the poer they have today so that in the future they will have more power to use. Crudely it is planning for survival. More conspiratorially it is planning for the best for the future even if others aren't. There isn't really anything devious in this but the appearance of power as contained and disciplined via strategy and tactics can appear so for two reasons:
1. Most people don't, and don't know how to, plan for their futures. Most people are content enough to live with the vagaries of other people's plans and the cards they're dealt with.
2. Most people can't see beyond the immediate and so see the occasional visible aspects of power as pointing towards something they are aware they haven't a full grasp of but also that they aren't involved in.

These rightly make people uneasy because any fool can recongise that those who plan are likely (although not guaranteed) to get what they want when we don't. If they get what they want through planning when we don't, and even perhaps at our expense, then it can appear as if they're devious, abusive and selfish. The latter is technically true perhaps - although not necessarily immoral for that.

What remains invisible is that the achievement of one's ends over a lengthy period of time is built up out of many negotiations, many concessions and many compromises for all the parties involved. This is the heart of power; the art of compromise.