link to original reddit post by /u/MayCaesar
In discussions of various issues affecting large numbers of people, almost always the concept of "power" is invoked at some point. Some people, the argument goes, have power over other people and, as such, get to control their lives, and those other people have no choice but to comply with the demands of the powerful.
In these discussions, something essential is lost: the idea that power has many different manifestations, and not all of them are necessarily comparable. Let us consider a few examples:
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The dictator of North Korea has power over all North Korean residents.
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A beautiful woman has power over a gentleman infatuated with her.
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A band of highwaymen with swords and bows has power over an armless merchant walking down a lonely road.
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Amazon has power over a customer wanting a free 2-day delivery on a new TV set.
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A coven of vampires in a cave has power over a village which they harass at night, searching for human blood.
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Fox News has power over a gullible farmer buying its narrative favoring farming subsidies.
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July Caesar has power over a Goth village he is sieging.
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A manipulating husband who is a sole owner of his house has power over his girlfriend staying there for free.
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A Greek slave owner has power over his slaves.
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An abusive boss in a private company has power over his employees.
What is common between all these cases? Very little, really. In all of them we have a situation where one party wants something from the other party and has certain leverage over it. Yet the types of leverage involved differ significantly.
There is one essential difference between cases 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 on one hand, and 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 on the other. In the former set of cases, the "underpowered" party is free at any moment to get up and walk away, subject to no retaliation. In the latter set of cases, such freedom is absent: aside from the ability to try to flee the situation and escape the coming retaliation (which may or may not succeed), there are only two choices available: comply with the demands of the powerful party, or oppose that party violently.
Another way to look at it is as follows: in cases 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 the powerful party asks something of the "powerless" party in exchange for something the latter wants from it; in cases 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 the powerful party requests something of the powerless party in exchange for not taking something away from it by force. In the first set of cases we have a peaceful exchange offer; in the second one, we have an act of violent extortion.
Why do people conflate these two very different kinds of power? Objectivists often classify them as "economical power" and "political power" respectively, and the difference in their nature becomes very clear with this terminology in mind. Economical power is the power of persuasion, of peaceful offering, of request for a mutually beneficial exchange. Political power is the power of the gun, of foerce, of threats. Economical power is about voluntary cooperation; political power is about forced servitude.
Of course, one can dig a bit deeper and offer a finer classification of each of these two types of power. There clearly can be different kinds of economical power; for example, the power of someone offering you a product you really want, but don't really need, is clearly different from the power of someone withholding a product your life depends on in exchange of favors. Yet the essential feature of the type of power in question remains: you are getting an offer that you are free to accept or reject without any retaliation from the offering party. In the worst case scenario, you end up in the same situation as you were prior to the offer; in the best case scenario, you end up better. You never end up worse, unless you made a terrible trading mistake.
By the same token, no matter what particular manifestation of the political power, its victim always ends up worse than prior to the "offer". When someone points a gun at you, then, pretty much no matter what you do, at the end of this exchange you will be worse off than before its beginning - unless you kill the aggressor and loot their body for valuables, which involves tremendous amount of risk which, in itself, can be seen as a huge negative.
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Now, with these considerations in mind, we can closely examine the popular claims among people generally opposing the idea of the free market: that the rich individuals, the large corporations, the influential media companies, the cunning advertisement agencies, the stock traders and - a relatively new one - simple folks excercising their free speech a little too freely - that all of these entities are running the society, using their immense resources, knowledge and well developed influence strategies to subject the common folks to some dystopia in which the few have everything, and everyone else has almost nothing.
First of all, it is absolutely true that not every action that does not make use of political power is absolutely harmless. Can a media company with a malicious agenda influence the public opinion strongly, causing events that negatively affect almost everyone, even those people who choose not to consume that company's products? Of course.
Nonetheless, do actions of such companies really equate "running the society"? To give a positive answer to this question would be to commit quite a leap of logic. These companies can offer certain products to their consumers, but it is ultimately up to the consumers whether to accept them or not. And, later, it is up to said consumers whether to act on the information the products give them or not.
Claiming that media companies, free market corporations, rich individual investors, etc. are running the society is equivalent to discarding the idea that the individual is a free agent able to act independently, according to their own values, goals, interests, skills and abilities. A company selling people tobacco products still is only making the offer to its potential consumers. Not everyone will take on this offer, and not everyone who took on this offer once will keep taking on it forever.
It seems to me that at the core of this narrative is lack of respect for the individual's ability to make choices. According to the people telling us that we are all being run by manipulative capitalists, humans are like primitive machines: whatever program you put into them defines completely how they will act.
It is true, of course, that there are certain biological properties of human organism that we (yet) are not able to change, and that certain private companies will go out of their way to research those properties and learn to use them to maximize their profits. Yet no private company can access our bodies without our consent. If someone is truly paranoid about being negatively influenced by the advertisers, then why not just install some adblock software on their computer, turn off their TV and ignore the large highway billboards in Chicago or Shanghai? Speaking of those billboards, I love looking at them, appreciating their design and clever mottos - but have they really ever caused me to buy something I would not have bought without seeing them? Not that I am aware of. And even if they did, so what? I have not become a heroin addict or a casino gambler wasting evenings and paychecks in Vegas by a slot machine. Perhaps some minor influence has occurred; perhaps I have bought more Coca-Cola bottles than I otherwise would have. What of it? I still make my own choices when going to a grocery store, and when I feel that my emotions are likely to influence me, then I make a list of things to buy prior to going to a store and follow this list to the letter.
Same goes for the smaller instances of economical power. Take the common cause of complaints from various young people on the Internet: "My girlfriend is so manipulative: she uses my desire to have sex with her to drain my wallet". You know what the solution is? Stop being her boyfriend. Or take a stand. Or use persuasion. Or do something else. It is not like you are just a bag of meat following your primal instincts who anyone can bounce around with a couple of seductive smiles.
All of these complaints have the general assumption in common: that humans are mindless victims of their primal instincts. Which a) is simply not true, and b) even if were true, would not imply that they cannot make pretty significant choices in their lives.
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I want to make the final point of this essay through a reference to a fragment from the interview with Yeonmi Park, a refugee from North Korea who gained worldwide renown for her willingness to speak publicly about the crimes of the regime and her own extremely traumatic experiences. The host of the interview asked her about what surprised her the most in South Korea. In response, she recounted one of her first trips to a fashion store. She walked up to a shelf full of pretty dresses, completely lost in the abundance of choices, and her friend asked, "Which one do you like the most?" And she realized at that moment that during her life in North Korea, not a single time did anyone asked her what she liked or wanted. There was only always a directive: "This is what you should do", "This is what you should wear", "This is how you should walk", "This is how you should speak".
This - the ability to choose between a large number of options - is what, in my opinion, really defines the free world and separates it from the tyrannies of the past (and, unfortunately, of the present as well). This ability, of course, comes with caveats: the more choices you have, the more ways to make mistakes you have. And it also means that some people will use your confusion between multiple choices against you, trying to manipulate you into making a zero-sum trade which you are not the winner in. But is it not amazing: to be able to make a mistake, to learn from it and to try again?
The only alternative, in essence, is the North-Korean model: where, instead, you have choices imposed on you. Choices that someone else decided were good for you, without asking for your opinion. And it may be true that, at least, some of the choices that are imposed on you end up being better for you than the choices you yourself would have made if you could - however, is this a valid reason to deprive you from them? I do not think so. Moreover, the ability to make these choices itself has an immense value. It is not just the good choices that count, but the decision-making process itself does. Living in a sterile environment where you always get a good outcome, but your life is lived not by you, but by someone else, would be truly miserable.
Any real world model ends up being a certain mix of the two. Some freedom, and some North Korea. Is the second ingredient important? How much North Korea is needed to bake the perfect cake? To me, this is akin to asking how much soil should be put into a soup to make a perfect soup. The answer is, obviously, "zero".
When choosing between the power of a seductive capitalist, and the power of Kim Jung Un, why would anyone choose the latter? Why would anyone choose even a tiny proportion of the latter? No one would. Yet so many people would willingly choose the ever growing powers of modern democratic governments, which, in essence, operate on the same violence-based grounds. Yes, you will not be shot at the central plaza of New York City for voicing your disapproval of the government's actions - at least, we have that going for us. And yet, is a shopping trip to Best Buy not more pleasant than a license renewal trip to the DMV? Why not have more of the former and less of the latter?
I feel that the idea of individual freedom would be much more appealing to most people if there was more discussion of the essence of different types of power, and less confusion brought by focusing on the details of specific situations. If, instead of measuring some abstract "amount of power" wielded, say, by Best Buy and by CIA, people instead focused on the nature of that power. There can not be "too much" of a good power, but there certainly can be too much of a bad power - and, some would argue, any amount of bad power is too much.
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What do you guys think? Apologies for the wall of text: I have thought a lot about this subject and have a lot to say on it, yet my central point, hopefully, is clear!