Introduction
The question of liberty reveals sooner or later a weak state, which is always at risk of being completely overrun. The classical concept of liberty as a negative concept of absence or separation is a concept that does not want to be filled with a concrete content at all, a concept that deliberately leaves a space open to cede it to a private interest. And it always remains difficult to persist on a broad front and in the long run against the angry will of the public with such perceived emptiness, tolerated indeterminacy, or even libertinage; to withstand the tyranny of the culture collective without the will to become a powerful culture in return.
Every conscious movement is inevitably a liberating movement, which thus moves away from something unwanted(less wanted) - but uno actu also moves towards something (more) wanted, in order to occupy, possess and consume it. And as such, it must be able to defend, i.e. maintain the exclusion of foreign access and use. Every conflict in human history springs from nothing but an overlap of mutually excluding interests over a thing, over a space of interest, which thereby becomes a scarce thing or space. Without this scarcity, neither liberty nor power has any basis.
Ultimately, liberty and power are two sides of the same coin. It therefore seems worthwhile to approach the idea of liberty from its opposite - to complement it and to strive for a synthesis: via the question of power. A question that asks for seizing an opportunity while liberation is accomplished en passant. It asks as might - etymologically closer to the German Macht - for a Machbarkeit, an ability to change the mind of the others.
The conceptual tool shall be provided here mainly by praxeology, i.e. the logic of human action. Every conscious human movement is an action, a conscious execution of a preceding conscious decision. What are the conscious, rational and thus sayable parts of power? This shall be the subject of this essay.
The Concept of Power
First of all, the concept of power shall be freed from any hint of hypostasis. Therein lies the actual thought work of clarification. Thus, might or power is no substrate, no actual object in the environment of the actors, nor is it in the single-sided possession of a potentate. Power is not even its use itself. Power presupposes language and, in particular, a possibility of cost communication. Power operates in and through a speech act to change minds and alter their decision making and ultimately their course of action. With the successful speech act - and here the praxeological view comes into play - value ranks are shifted. Why should someone do what another prefers in opposition to the original preference or wanted course of action? That is in nuce the question of power.
The power effect
When a powerful enough speech act reaches an intented recipient, the original value rank affected by it shifts and this in the interest of the powerfully speaking person. I.e. an earlier, previously preferred option appears too costly as a result, loses its preference (higher value rank) and is discarded and abandoned in favour of a new communicated option. In the praxeological sense, costs are costs of opportunity and consist in the loss of options of action. Successfully communicating these costs constitutes the power event. These costs can take two basic forms: On the one hand, it is about the possible loss of already available options - by a threat of punishment, i.e. to destroy these options. On the other hand, it is about the loss of options one could obtain as a reward for an opportune desired behaviour in return.
One ultimately complies because the cost of not doing so is valued higher than the cost of abandoning the originally preferred option. And to this end, the other party tries to reveal or at least anticipate tipping points in the decision making of the recipient in order to communicate sufficiently high-ranking costs of action. Over someone who holds nothing dear, neither profit nor loss of anything, one cannot exercise power. This person is unreachable for any cost communication. And without cost communication no power is possible. Power is effective cost communication.
Power, then, is a relationship between strivers for possession in its broadest sense since it is only through possession that one can confront and be confronted with costs. And be it only the possession of a bare existence consisting of a body and the space it occupies. As long as at least one interest in anything exists, power can be exercised.
Those who have almost nothing to lose have almost everything to lose. And those who have hardly anything can gain a lot with little. The so-called marginal utility in economic terminology not only decreases, but increases in the opposite direction. For someone who is completely without money, a single monetary unit at the margin of decision will have a different significance than for someone who has thousands and thousands of them at his disposal. This one last money unit will hardly be able to move him to anything, neither as a threatened loss nor as a promised gain, because its value rank is below many other possible money sums (which can be formed from the available total sum).
Property as original Power Relation
Property implies scarcity. A space becomes scarce when, after the original occupations of the hitherto unoccupied space, roaming parties encounter each other and claim the same space. John Locke formulated his famous proviso on how much original occupation is acceptable: "at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.”1 But this is only a moral claim that remains meaningless as long as it cannot be powerfully underpinned, that is, as long as it does not become a certain established culture of ownership. Property goes beyond mere occupation. Property as a reliable and durable entitlement arises when a claim is permanently dropped or recognized via cost communication.
Property reveals another significant condition of power: it depends on a mark or token, some form of a focal point in the outer common environment, something the involved parties can relate and pointing to. A natural border like a river, or artifically created, a fence, a path, a sign. But why should a fence not be torn down or at least jumped over? In order to prevent this, the fencing-in party must be able to convincingly communicate that they are able and willing to bear the necessary exclusion costs, i.e. to make significant efforts to exclude all late coming parties.
On the other side, a “right of passage” through an already claimed and occupied space arises in a mirrored way through cost communication. If the costs of a too rigorous exclusion cannot be afforded at all, or if the costs seem too high when weighted against the benefits of such an all-out exclusion, then a trespasser can powerfully pave his way, loses his status as a unauthorized trespasser and gain an entitlement or right to do so. A recognizable trampling path becomes part of a semiotic Rechtszeichen (sign or token of right). It is not “the right” that precedes as a precondition, but the process of power that creates and maintains a right or entitlement. Property is nothing more than a granted bundle of rights to certain actions.
Authority as Power Retention by Establishment of an Institution
Authority is retention of power and as such a cost optimizing institution for the repeated exercise of power. Such an institution consists in nothing else than the lasting impression of the recipients of past successful cost communications. It is a matter of solidifying or fixing the contents of consciousness as a culture that takes the place of the original, usually costly confrontation.
Such consolidation or "thickening" happens via the hypostasis of mind contents, which follows an abstraction(as distancing from the actual). A perceived pattern, which consists completely of the movements of the actors, is named, becomes a name, a named idea or concept. Later on, an independent object living on its own emerges from this idea, which wants to be more than it actually is. Then a decisive twist comes into play which brings a Besessenheit2 into the minds: this hypostasized abstraction becomes the unconditional precondition of the original movements, whereas it is actually only named result of these movements. A specific use of language, a culture of signs and meaning jumps from the establishing actions, to an establishment, to a thing of concreteness above the actors. That is the birth of the Kulturbetrieb3.
The type of such an institution does not play a significant role, whether it is a cultural organization in the narrower sense or a scientific operation, a public office or the State itself. Let us call all of them Kulturbetrieb. A uniform, a badge, a certain habitus as the stoic repetition of a similar outer appearance, is the most prominent carrier of such an abstraction thickening cult, which nourishes the illusion of an actual behind. To turn a mere joke or a lively private game into a public matter of seeming seriousness and concreteness is the art of authority or chutzpah.4
Science as Kulturbetrieb
Perhaps “the science” - another bold hypostasis - is considered to be the furthest away from the Kulturbetrieb and from a shaping influence of power and interest, located in the fantastic realm of Wertfreiheit. But what is science? Science is the pursuit and claim of regularity, that is, of a repetition of similar events that emerges as a rule, something constant or fixed. The basic problem hereby is "that anything can be said to be a ‘repetition’ of anything, if only we adopt the appropriate point of view."5, as Karl Popper stated. Mathematically, the chosen point of view consists in a functional relationship between two sets of data. One set forms the dependent variables, the other the independent ones. And the functional relation steps in between both sets and maps the one by its transformation to the other. For this the function necessarily contains constants. Constants that get names, get meanings and are considered to be the cause that an X of one data set causes a Y of the other data set. But - there are several, even an infinite number of possible functional relationships between two data sets. The choice of a relationship and the choice of the constants and their meaning is the taken standpoint in the science. Even the choice of any conceptual borders, how one conceptually cuts (differentiates) the world into parts, what one thinks to measure at all constitutes a point of view.
The appropriateness of a point of view or the choice of it at all is a dependent value judgement, which has to be asserted powerfully, if it wants to have any further authority. In this way, a scientific institution is no different from all other cultural establishments with all its humiliations and assaults. It is a Kulturbetrieb in which orthodoxy and heterodoxy argue unequally over the hegemony of the right interpretation.
Language as the most general Power Relation
It has been suggested to contrast the authority of the collective Kulturbetrieb with the "authority by authorship of the individual"6. The individual with no power behind it but just words and the persuasiveness of the bare expression. Or with just a stroke of art, a piece of art as a deliberate deviation from banality of everyday life, an art, that convinces, moves, baffles, riddles an audience waking up its interest. But it should not be forgotten that each statement is made out of a linguistic or semiotically interpretable culture. An author's word or stroke can only have an effect and develops authority if it is expressed from within an already established culture, that is, if the author makes use of an establishment to which recipients have surrendered.
It is, of course, always an individual, and a bold one often blessed with lots of chutzpah, who first sets a power process in motion. But just as the individuals are the echoing, amplifying, carrying recipients of this process. The collective is the illusion. The authorship of the individual is not in a neutralizing way opposite to the power, but its beginning. The original art stroke is a foundation laying brick of a new culture or tradition. Otherwise it’s just idiosyncratic babble or noise no one is willing to grasp and follow. But if one is able to transform noise into something of interest and significance, a process of power begins. The seed of a new authority has been laid, but it requires an even more basic humus. Such authority can only arise from a perceived inequality, something to give precedence. The very first signs and words occur in a constellation drenched in power already. Who makes the first sound, who leads, who follows, who departs or denies a leadership? To which sound is meaning attributed, whose utterance is worth interpreting at all? Who is worthy of paying attention? There is a permanent struggle about Deutungshoheit. But who to follow when there is a perfect even distribution of everything? There wouldn’t be a reason, even a possibility to follow. The consequence of equality is - indifference. Nothing matters anymore. There can be no more interest here. It was suggested that equality should only refer to the fact that we are all essentially equal in that we basically know little to nothing. But all we are driven by is not in this banal equality but in what we perceive as difference in a potential, as small as it may be in the whole. The attraction consists only in the difference, in a slope.
The substantivized concept of power itself is the best example of how difficult it is to look behind the language, to dissolve its hypostasis again and thus to dismantle powerful transfiguration and deception, to deconstruct the powerful construct again. One would have to de-substantiate language widely in order to prevent power processes via hypostasis. From language to speaking as a process to the question of who speaks and with what intention and interest something is signified. Not something has “a meaning”, but something is meant, i.e. pointed to.
Provocation as an Attention economizing Method of Power
In the speech act, power implies a reference to something third, a focal point external to the actors. The mere ability to shift these focal points, i.e. to direct attention, can already be interpreted as a process of power, because it changes weightings and ultimately the behavior of others. The struggle for Deutungshoheit is thus largely a contest on what is pointed to and in which direction the heads turn. The audience's attention is understood here as an utterly scarce resource, because the focus on one thing steals that very attention from all other things. But how to get to the provocation of someone? A thing must be problematized, becomes more important than everything else. Which brings us back to cost communication. Someone may be provoked by the question of what might happen if we did not focus our attention on a particular thing. The idea of loss provokes attention. The end of the world here as the greatest loss to be assumed. Now this excessive provocation can quickly lead to overstimulation and thus to dullness. This means that the provocation must always surprise with new stimuli, i.e. break out of a familiar routine, but then restore the reference to the actual concern.
Culture of Liberty
Can liberty exist as a special culture, as exception, without falling prey to the usual paradoxes? Or must it not be allowed to become a culture at all, because it runs the risk of leading itself ad absurdum and dissolving itself again precisely by becoming a culture?
The most radical liberation as the most complete dissolving, redeeming, releasing is perhaps to be found in the figure of Jesus Christ - fulfilled in the "Kingdom of God" as a purely spiritual state of liberation from the original sin. The original sin, which consisted in the bite into the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this fall apart from the paradise of the untouched judgmentlessness. As long as this personal freedom is completely consumed in the life and passion of Jesus, it is admittedly not a culture. But nevertheless a culture begins here: in the sermon as a speech act, in the recommendation, perhaps already in the mere example. In the abandonment of power, Jesus wants to give his example. But is not the absolute abandonment of power an absolute surrender to power? Jesus tries to take away the appeal of the exercise of power when he recommends: "And if anyone compels you to go one mile, go with him two."(Matt. 5:41) Although Jesus appears to comply, even to double what is demanded, he denies the oppressor the satisfaction of breaking a resistance. Perhaps Jesus even puts him to shame. With the loss of opposition, however, power increasingly loses its foundation, its opposing subject against which it can measure itself, develop and ultimately endure. This is its paradox. It must not become too successful, too expansive, or it will disintegrate again into smaller parts like the Roman Empire, which had become too expansive and greedy.
A radical Jesus cannot become a culture, because he is culture annihilation. He is release from everything, from every judgment and weighing. He turns to the unspeakable per se, which cannot have a graspable, comprehensible, followable content. If one sticks to this radical interpretation, there was only one Christ(ian) - the unique one, the unrepeatable, Jesus Christ himself. Culture consists in repetition, in imitation, in a state of fixation and permanence. Now, in "Christianity" an immense, even monstrous fixity has arisen, which establishes the figure of Jesus Christ as its focal point - and fills it with worldly interests, with threats and promises. It plays the whole instrumentality of the powerful Kulturbetrieb. Abstinence seems impossible and where it is practiced without any cultural aspiration, it is not perceived and does not take place in the collective memory or it is counteracted and abused by an interest.
Conclusion
In a world of overlapped interests, thus of the scarce means, the result can never be the anarchy (powerlessness) of all, but at most a power consciousness of all, the panarchy or at least the polyarchy. Just as atheism wants to drive out God completely, anarchism wants to drive out power completely. Thereby it can mean and want only the panarchy seriously. Power as empowerment and possibility is not to be problematized here. It is the lack of power consciousness on one side. Their powerlessness constitutes the power of the other side over them. Power shapes the relationship of people to each other.
Power as coercion can only be exercised when one side submits, bows to the fear of loss. That the powerful side anticipates this fear is an essential part of the exercise of power. But this also means that the potentate must know this fear and is potentially susceptible to it himself. He himself has costs to bear. He himself evaluates costs; his decisions can also tip. Power is not an one-way road, but an extensive, language mediated web of relationships woven from pretense and deception. But every deception carries the risk that one day it will be debunked.
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter V, paragraph 27.
It is that Besessenheit(possession) which probably Max Stirner made most tangible in his Einziger (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, 1845). It is the loss of the awareness that an idea is always a dependent creature of a creating owner. The made-ness of every idea is forgotten here, that every idea serves a particular interest and is thus also rejectable at any time. Instead, the idea itself gains authority, becomes owner, so to speak, and the people addicted to the idea literally become possessed by it.
It’s quite difficult to translate the German Kulturbetrieb. A Kulturbetrieb is an imaginary formation, body or institution of culture in which context someone moves as if there is a concrete or real entity behind. But it’s the uniform and conscious behaviour(Betreiben) itself and all its consequences.
Perhaps one of the most entertaining and powerful illustrations of what power is and how it works is found in Anderson's tale “The Emperor's New Clothes”. On the one hand, we find here a vast number of already established cultural signs: A crown. A scepter. Royal ermine. The very heraldry of sovereignty. God's grace. In addition, the professional title of two deceptive tailors as a pretense of proficiency. The authority of the title, which can be exploited by their interests. And then follows the decisive point. The skillful initial cost communication by the tailors, which, if it taken seriously, triggers a power process that can thereafter be self-perpetuating. Anyone who cannot see the clothes made of a “very special” fabric on the body of the king, is considered as stupid, incompetent in office, and so on. Anyone who cannot see the fabric and says so exposes himself to the risk of loss. Loss of reputation, authority, income, his very existence finally - and so one plays along with the charade. On the other hand, perhaps the clothes are actually made of a very special material. One does not want to expose oneself. And so the emperor and everyone else act in a common realm of the “as if”. As if he is visibly dressed, although no one can actually see the emperor’s new clothes. No one is willing to communicate this perceived discrepancy. Apparently, everyone just perceives the people around them who act as if they can see the special fabric. And even the emperor paid a good lump of gold for it.
Only a small, naive child breaks through this power relationship. Because it has no reputation to lose and no costs to fear, it can freely express what everyone can see anyway: The emperor is naked. And this little spark seems to be enough to decisively lower the costs for the surrounding spectators and to motivate them to the revelation. Like a series of dominoes, the previously self-supporting constellation of power collapses one by one, finally reaching the emperor himself. Revolutions on a large scale are no different. They are initiated by those who have the least to lose.
Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
A term coined by Bazon Brock and used in many places, for example in the course of his lecture "Evidenzkritik gilt nur durch Evidenzerweis. Zur Logik der Forschung" at the German Electron Synchrotron, Hamburg, Oct. 11, 2022.
“ anarchism wants to drive out power completely.”
Another view is that anarchism sees only voluntary authority as legitimate. Here, “voluntary” is used to mean that one may opt out, but chooses not to.