Mike Oren.com

In Durkheim's introduction to The Division of Labor, he discusses how not only industry but all of society is on a track of continuous specialization and division of labor (Durkheim 1997:2-4). He discusses the fragmentation of philosophy into a host of special disciplines and the further fragmentation of those disciplines into minutely narrowed, specialized fields of research. The typical saying with graduate studies is that the further you go along in your education process the more and more you should be specializing in your education in order to find your 'niche' that will earn you respect in your field, tenure, etc. Taking the field of Sociology as an example, we see people specializing in such sub-fields as criminology, rural sociology, urban sociology, etc. These fields are then FURTHER subdivided into areas of further specialization that I would be the wrong person to ask about, but I know they exist. There are also additional divisions based on researchers epistemologies, or there understanding of what makes something true (in Durkheim's time positivism was the rule and the way), that not only further divide things into sub-specializations but often form entirely separate schools of thought so even when individuals are tackling the same problem they may not accept one another's results as 'true' or understand one another's view of 'truth'. In some ways, this repetitive labor calls to mind Durkheim's notion of organic society, but rather than forming the organic solidarity he spoke of we are finding fissures that Coser's introduction to this version of the book discusses Durkheim's reaction to: "if the division of [...] produces a low degree of social cohesion and solidarity, if technical developments have outstripped the growth of an appropriate regulative apparatus--it behooves social scientists to warn decision makers that only creation of new institutionalized bonds can prevent social decay through strife and spreading of social disorder" (Durkheim 1997:xxi). In some ways, this is what is happening with the social sciences, a low degree of social cohesion and solidarity has emerged through the development of sub-specializations within sub-specializations and splits between social scientists on what 'truth' means, but there is no social scientist to warn the social scientists in charge of their field of this division (or at least not one all sides would listen to), there is no policy that they can influence aside from the journals that are counted toward tenure application but due to the ease of publication with modern technologies ways of subverting the system can easily be found, not to mention that the social sciences produce the works that analyze subversion of social structures, norms, etc. and would be the ones most able to break any system in place. This is a topic Dr. Woodman has broached in class on at least one occasion this semester and in reading Durkheim, we should be well aware of the perils the current state of things places the discipline as a whole. While it could end up as a "mostly harmless" splintering into additional disciplines, reading Durkheim should make it clear to all of us that there is also a very real possibility of it splintering into non-existence, collapsing like a house of cards.

The other part about this very brief section I chose to narrow my focus down to (in the interest of division of labor and specialization), is what he has to say for people like me who try to spread to many disciplines (computer science and creative writing undergrad, human-computer interaction Masters with some elements of psychology and working with a geoscientist, and now human-computer interaction and sociology for my PhD) and refuse to fully specialize: "It appears to us that such a state of detachment and indeterminateness is somewhat antisocial" (Durkheim 1997:4). Maybe to society such an approach is viewed as antisocial and maybe the traditional view of the tenure process is a narrow niche that you can own and that pays you back with tenure, but I see the approach as the opposite--but taking this wide view of research, I am able to cross not just disciplinary bounds but bounds of colleges in order to find research collaborators from a wide area to explore larger issues, seek out larger grants, and publish more widely (you'd be amazed at how much further data takes you when different parts of that data are of interest to different fields). I haven't applied for any grants, but in looking through the call for grants and in discussion with various faculty members from different parts of campus the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other large grant boards are increasingly searching for less specialized research that is taking more of this interdisciplinary approach. Besides enriching my vita and pockets, this wider view also enriches my life more because it allows me gain friends in other disciplines such as biology, physics, etc. who specialize in obscure areas of their field (fields that I only have passing formal education about) but we are able to find common ground in portions of a wider area of research and still discuss their work in ways that inform me of their fields and widens my area of understanding in general. So while Durkheim is definitely right about societal expectations for specialization, and he may be right about the negative views society gives to those who do not specialize, I nevertheless claim that by not FULLY specializing one is able to gain a competitive advantage if the rest of the field blindly specializes. I say not fully specializing because breadth of knowledge only gets you so far and some specialization and depth is definitely needed--you just have to make sure that no matter how deep you dig you dig horizontally on occasion or remember to tie a rope to the top so you can occasionally climb up for air and a horizontal walk to explore a hole in another area.

I'll possibly decide to 'specialize' less on this post at a later time this week. I'm generally really enjoying Durkheim, especially since he generally does not cause the same amount of conflict between my two social selves the way Marx did causing me to decide how much I value luxuries gained through manipulation of social power vs. how much I value a fair shake for all (I think I, generally, ended up in realizing that I am mostly a Social Democrat--much to my younger brother's smug approval since he's been a Social Democrat for years and I always had fun taking an overly conservative stance just to mess with him). Durkheim has a style though where I feel like he is at least "telling it like he sees it", if not always telling it like it is due to the limited knowledge of the time--there is no ideological baiting or anything that puts one side or the other of me on an offensive defensive mode. Durkheim is what I see a social scientist as needing to be: an objective observer seeking to understand a system so that proposals can be made to try and change things, to fix flaws in the social structure, and not to simply "whine" about a problem without explaining how it's a problem or ways it can be fixed. I do not gain understanding from 'understanding' a specific case, I gain understanding by understanding the system in place and how that system might be changed to allow for a specific improvement. I do not expect that a model of society will be perfect and explain everything or that a solution will fix all problems, I expect a model to be "good enough" to explain the phenomena "most of the time" under certain conditions and that it will be expanded and modified as needed as new information becomes available. Likewise, my assumption is that solutions are just "steps in the right direction" and not end all solutions as progress is a constant process and maybe one day one problem will be solved, but I expect another problem (possibly caused by the solution of the first problem) will crop up to be solved. Some may call this posivist grounded approach 'oppressive' and 'dominant culture', but I look at this 'science' that seeks understanding but no solutions and I ask 'what's the point?' I may very well be part of that problem of division within social sciences by taking that approach, but if somebody wants to give me an answer about the point that doesn't attempt to attack in attempt to justify itself, then I'm all ears.

Durkheim, Emile. 1997 (1893) The Division of Labor in Society. W.D. Halls, trans. NY: Free Press.

I found this video today, and I thought I'd share it, notice the similarities between this story and Veblen's explanation of the rise and fall of the Vikings:


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

In Veblen's wonderfully enjoyable essay on the rise and fall of the viking empire and its parallels to Capitalism (An Early Experiment in Trusts), I found myself unable to resist making the connection with the Capital One Viking commercials:


I'm not sure if Capital One did, in fact, take the inspiration for these commercials in part from Veblen's essay, but if they did it would add an additional undertone of irony considering the all too ominous warning Veblen gives as to the results of excesses of greed. Like Vikings, Capitalism began as small, independent farmers (or small business owners) banning together to form expeditions in search of greater profits. Capitalism, like the Viking enterprises, eventually led to most of the smaller companies being gobbled up and a difficulty of new small companies to compete in the face of large corporate trusts; however, Capitalist governments (unlike Vikings) made regulations intended (in theory) to keep the large corporation from becoming too big and putting in systems of protections (to a degree) for the small upstarts. Viking corporations ended in the way that free, unrestricted Capitalism would have in the emergence of a single Viking company controlling all assets and then under poor leadership and an over extension of its power collapsing under its own weight. Capitalism managed to delay this collapse by putting in systems of regulation and protections, but (like the Vikings) greed has shown itself to be excessive (I am not one to argue against taking gains and becoming wealthy, but I do see issues with becoming wealthy while driving an organization into the ground or taking excessive amounts of wealth--is it better for one person who will not reinvest or spend $1 billion to have that money or for that person to have $150 million, still very wealthy, while the remaining money is distributed to start up new companies, pay employees extra--almost surely to be spent on luxuries by the middle class and thus helping to reproduce the means by which the modern economy functions). Thus, we now find ourselves in an economy crippled by the excessive greed of the banking industry, not to mention the Enrons and several other companies over the past decade or so that have shown that the underpinning of Capitalism (money begetting more money) has reached the ceiling inherit in the fact that we live in a closed system with limited resources and the only way to reach further gains at this point is to merge and risk a monopoly or play the imaginary numbers game. There are no more markets that can be opened, the world market has been fairly well saturated. Until colonization of space begins (NASA promised it in promotional videos I saw in elementary school--we should have had it about a half decade ago), no new trade markets will open up nor will we see any new (huge) infusions of raw materials. Clearly instead of continuing a system focused on ever increasing greed, we need to rethink the system and build one focused on sustaining economic conditions and conservation of resources (and colonization of space). That or we let Capitalism have a few more 'good years' and set it free to the open market while we sit back with a bucket of popcorn and watch the Viking horde of Capitalism consolidate, rape and pillage the land and workers, and then collapse in a gluttoness heap.

*I should note that I realize companies continue to expand their markets in other countries the economies of India and China are growing every day, but it seems reasonable that their growth will lead (if it is not already) to the slow down or death of other economies or (if nothing else) at some point in the future those economies will reach a relative plateau state, when perhaps the economies of Africa can be further tapped (or South America) but when all of these economies are tapped, where will the bourgesie obtain its proletariat? To me, in my admitted economic naivety, it seems incomprehensible that under conditions of full (or near full) saturation we should expect, nay DEMAND, a never ending increase in capital. Especially when capital has the tendency to be hoarded, reducing the consuming power necessary to sustain and reproduce the elements of the system.

As I stated in class today, things written for propaganda purposes tend to generally upset me because I tend to feel they insult my intelligence as the holes in such things tend to be large enough to stick a bowling ball through. The Communist Manifesto is definitely no exception to that rule, and I apologize to anybody who loves the document and was at all offended by my intent to argue against some of the ideas it espouses. While I do wholeheartedly believe that Marx was fundamentally wrong about the nature of human nature and that most individuals will usually seek to gain over other individuals (that they do not know--the rules change when direct social bonds exist) and thus the notion that everybody will choose to share and share alike in some idealistic community of the world while a very nice notion (it would be very nice to see something similar happen) is not realistic in the world that I know. In class we began discussing how such a system could be made to work and while we could socialize everybody to believe that sharing is the nrom (opposite of current) and that will fix part of the problem (for those born into that system) there is still the problem of those born into the system of self-interest known as capitalism and the fact that not all those born into the new system and socialized to share will end up subscribing to those norms. We could eliminate all of the capitalists and those socialized into the ideals of self-interest, that would end up being a bloodbath and the loss of knowledge resulting from those deaths would be extremely tragic. Imprisoning them all and keeping them from inserting the ideals of self-interest into the system is equally impossible. We may still be able to assume that as time goes on the current ideals of capitalist society will be replaced by the new ones and, for the sake of argument, we can assume that through this socialization people will stop acting in their self-interest and will be happy having an equal share of the profit. Until such a thing happens (if ever, again I note I'm a pessimist), we would need some type of system to ensure that individuals are not trying to take more than their share. However, by setting up such a group we introduce a source of inequality that (based on the history of almost every government ever set up) has the potential to (and almost certainly will) abuse this social power to take advantage of others. However, for such an abuse to occur individuals have to be able to hold power long enough and have enough of an understanding of the system. If we eliminate professional politicians, have compulsory government service, and limit the terms to a reasonably short period that prevents a single individual from gaining enough of a foothold that would allow them to gain enough social power to control the system. The panel in power would need to be limited to a sufficient number that all governing and enforcement decisions are not stuck in constant debate but large enough that it would be difficult for an individual to gain power over the entire group. The governing body should be explicitly forbidden to extend terms, allow more than 1 term, or assign any individual executive control. However, it is recognized that in the event of emergencies, large panels are completely ineffective and during such times a small group of 9 individuals will be in charge for a period not to exceed 1 year--all decisions will be based on a simple majority vote and the executive powers will be limited as they will lack the power to pass any laws that extend beyond their tenure as executives, cannot extend the executive term, and do not have direct control over any military forces (which pledge their loyalty to the populous). To maintain some semblance of organizational memory the installation of new members to the governing body will be stratified so each year a portion of the governing body (most senior) are removed to be replaced by the new members.

The military is another beast that would need to have clear controls to prevent abuse, but I have not pondered that beyond how to prevent an executive body from using it to advance their own self-interest. Astute students of history will likely see echoes of the Athenian and Roman governments within this system, and I do not deny that I have taken elements from each (more heavily borrowed from the Athenians, whereas our current government borrowed more heavily from Rome). I see the most important elements as being limits to the number of years of a term and limit to terms for ALL government officials and for the government officials to be pulled from the entire populous (otherwise what's to stop one group from deciding they are 'better' than another and shoring up the power--sure this may result in individuals who are less than mentally capable being part of the governing body but I fail to see how that is different than our current government). As was pointed out in class today, Marx himself came to realize that while the idealist dream of one of his periods of life was a nice dream that revolutions often resulted in a single individual ascending to power (Tucker 1978:594-617).

I make no claims that this is a good form of government, nor do I make any claims that this is a desirable direction. I still stand by my previous claim that throughout the history of the world there have always been some individuals held above others and that there's nothing wrong with that so long as it is based on MERIT and that there are CAPS on rewards an individual can gain (and that slightly more than basic needs are provided to all people--not just enough for them to survive until the next day). I see this as more of a blending of socialism and capitalism that FDR began as an attempt to move the country out of the Depression, although since that time most of the efforts to expand said programs have been consistently blocked and those defending the notions of the long dead 'pure capitalism' have labeled such measures as 'pinko commie propaganda'. While I will not deny that the Communist Mainfesto is propaganda (and offensive to me), nor do I deny that the young Marx was full of mostly hot air, but I will say that Marx (primarily the economist, when not a propagandist swing, and occasionally the social historian) makes some very astute observations of the failings of Capitalism and the crisis that the current economic slump illustrates that it has not found a way around. I think how far down the line of socialism we need to go is up for debate; however, I don't think whether Capitalism can survive without walking somewhat down that line is possible (we did it once in the past and it saved us, but much of what was built up to allow Capitalism to be more sustainable was destroyed by those foolish enough to believe that pure Capitalism results in anything less than oligarchal businesses in the BEST case scenarios), but I don't think going all the way to full socialization of all businesses and resources is practical or desirable at this time--if ever (although I am aware that some of my colleagues will disagree with me on this point).

After the discussion I sat in on following 'formal' class time, I realized that there are some thoughts and background I should provide that explain what I call my 'double life' academically, politically, socio-economically, and several other metaphysical and intellectual ways. This also may help explain my choice of L.F. Ward as my theorist to focus on. Academically is the easiest one to discuss as there is nothing personal about it: I am both 'left and right brained' and I need both a dose of cold, rational mathematics and analysis as well as a dose of humanistic, social, holistic view of the world. That need for the balance in different academic pursuits led me to co-major in computer science and English (creative) writing as an undergraduate, led me to the interdisciplinary major of human-computer interaction, etc.

Religiously, while I continue to lean more and more toward atheism, part of me still feels the need for religion (it should be noted that the linked to post of mine from just over 2 years ago needs some revision--it is written very much from a control-based perspective framed as something more innocent). My socio-economic status through my family has been solid middle class with two working parents with a joint income of around $60k, lower middle class after my parents divorced with my mom working two jobs just to pay the bills, upper middle class during my mom's 2nd marriage (separated now) with a joint income at that point of $150k, and on my father's side from lower class (he usually pulls in about $25k or less a year) to poor (he's been below the poverty line before). My mom went from a low level corporate employee while working at then Amoco and rose to supervisor of her area and is currently at Fannie Mae in a mid-level management position (although she mostly interacts with their slew of consultants in charge of the various records management IT solutions). My father has never held a job for more than 2 or 3 years that I can remember, although he's always been in sales of one type or another (currently he works for a Lowes doing cabinet/kitchen design and retail sales). Neither of my parents graduated college--my father went to college on a fencing scholarship before dropping out when he failed to do well in Calculus and his dreams of becoming a medical doctor were crushed (and he had no idea what to do after that). My grandparents on both sides of my family were immigrants from Eastern Europe--although the only grandparent I have ever known is my maternal grandmother (from Poland) who helped raise me and my 3 siblings after selling her house to help my mother and fatehr buy a larger house to accommodate all the children. My older brother went to college for 2 years seeking a marketing degree before dropping out and working as an assistant manager in retail for a number of years before going back to college for a history degree (he completed it the same year I completed my Masters) and he is currently working retail (2 jobs--the 2nd one was needed to help pay back college debt), my youger sister had a baby at the age of 18 the father died due to a medical condition within a month after she kicked him out (my mom had let the both live in the house and had converted our living room into a bedroom they could use) within a year she got married to a different guy she knew for about 2 months (they eloped) they were together 2 years and had a baby (she moved out and separated from him over the summer and is currently living with my mom and her two children), my younger brother has a friend who went to rehab for dealing drugs but other than questionable choices in association and his earlier years in high school he seems to be fairly well balanced (he started this year at Carthage College to pursue a degree in psychology--he wants to become a clinical psychiatrist). So I have a 'colored' family background to say the least.

I, myself, have not had a period of unemployment for roughly 14 years now--I had my first job (a paper route) at the age of 10 (at the age of 15 I took a job at the concession stand at a movie theater, 16 I took a job at McDonald's, 17-18 I worked at Meijer--a Michigan-based all-in-one store, at college I worked IT support, built databases, etc. and during summers I took internship at an aerospace defence company, an internship at a division of LexisNexis that due to their recent acquirement was still operating as a start-up but the corporate overlords could be seen encroaching), and in grad school I've had a research assistantship for the past 2 and a half years with an internship at Google the summer after the first year of my Masters. So my work experience, while short lived in most places, has been decently diverse. My undergraduate was financed entirely on loans minus the merit scholarship (I went to a small, private college with a liberal faculty and conservative student body--although most of my friends were liberals or moderates, I had a decent number of conservative connections as well). I joined a fraternity (for 1 week--I quit because I saw greater opportunities for power elsewhere, I saw the fratnerity not as a group that would gain my network connections but as something that would limit me and try to shape me).

Politically, my mother is a Democrat and my father is a Republican, and perhaps it is natural for me to associate myself with neither party. In many ways both are the same to me, and in every Presidential election I vote for Senate members that are in the opposite party as the Presidential candidate I vote for (I had no problem voting against Harkin because I feel he has been in office far too long, plus I knew he would win no matter what my vote was). I think the House of Representatives is too large and nothing more than a partisan playground fight with votes around ideological perspectives, too much talk, and too little action. The Senate I see as generally productive although rife with corruption, but at least they seem to get things done (usually be trading favors/votes and quite possibly by less appropriate means). I'm in favor of the electoral college for the precise reason that I do not trust the 'wisdom of the masses'. I'm an elitist, and I have never denied that fact. However, I feel it is wrong to allow people to starve or otherwise flounder, and I am well aware that the reason people are homeless or jobless or otherwise tends not to be faults of their own and that our government is failing a huge mass of people. I believe in merit-based inequality but not 'natural inequality' (which is nothing more than a means of oppression)--if somebody is better at a particular task then they deserve greater rewards, if somebody is smarter than they deserve greater respect, etc. I believe everybody is BORN equal, but I do not believe everybody stays that way. I am aware that socio-economic circumstances do give individuals different advantages that allow them to rise to the higher eschelons. I believe in equal opportunity and that our school systems are not allowing for that--the current system teaches those in the lower socio-economic brackets to be followers and 'wage slaves' whereas the school systems at the upper levels teach social networking skills and other 'trust fund baby' life skills.

To tie this back into Marx, I see the young Marx as a trust fund baby rebelling against his father but too intellectually weak to make a point (he reminds me of individuals I've met from Stanford and other liberal, top tier schools--well intentioned but no practical understanding of things). However, middle Marx (the economist Marx) has thrown off the whiney trust fund brat attitude and has a deeper understanding of the actual human condition as opposed to what he has read in books and discusses it in a fairly reasoned and well rationed manner that displays an admittedly ingenius understanding of the high level system. I disagree with Marx's view of humans wishing to collaborate and seeking equality--even if that were true for the MAJORITY of individuals, it only takes one individual with enough social power to break the system and take personal gain (or to subvert the system and sneak personal gain). I know, I personally, enjoy my luxuries and while I would not willing 'screw over' somebody I know, I have no issue 'screwing over' somebody I have never met (or somebody I dislike) to make a personal gain so long as I do not feel I am hurting their survival. Socialism works for small groups, but when it comes to large groups there are more nameless, faceless individuals that people have no qualms taking advantage of for personal gain (or people they dislike/enemies that not only they have no qualms taking advantage of but they take pleasure from crushing).

I might add more to this post later, but right now I need to finish up some work for Soc 511.

The question posed for this week is "What is the nature of Social Power?"; however, before I get into the answer I want to revisit some of my thoughts from last week (briefly). First of all, while the Early Marx discussed in last week's post was fairly tautological and often failed to drive home a point, the 'economist' Marx as seen in Das Kapital, while still not one to conserve words, was very rational in his thought process and made clear points. Along with that, some of my thoughts about modern day alienation of the mind were addressed in some of these 'middle period' Marx works as well. With that said, Marx did seem to have a somewhat idyllic view of what life would be like in a nation where the populous no longer focuses on manufacture/industry work and shifts to the mental and creative labors--much as the modern Western states have done (although, rather than doing it through furthering automation, we did it by shifting industrial operations to other nations where we can exploit workers outside of our borders and thus make a feeble attempt to hide the exploitation from the public eye). Now instead of 'wage labor' we have 'salary labor' and instead of being forced by profiteers to give up our leisure time to produce tangible objects that we do not own, we voluntarily work at home after 'clocking out' to get reports and other intangible 'products of the mind' created for others. Marx seemed to view the intellectual labors as ones where the workers have more ownership of the product, and it's true that workers have more freedom to personalize their labor and even a degree (or illusion) of flexibility as to when to work on the 'products of the mind', but I believe that ultimately this is a false consciousness (Tucker 1978:284-285). In fact, Marx believed that capitalism would be desitned to end with the end of wage labor (Tucker 1978:215). However, my ideas are still not fully baked on this topic, so I will move on to the actual question of this week.

As somebody who has sought power in various forms for various reasons from the age of 5 (maybe 7) to the present, I still have trouble clinching down on a single answer to the question of the nature of social power. Sometimes power has simply been a personal thing, to be in control of myself and reject perceived control structures--a simple rejection of authority to exert my indpendence and taking actions to prove that I can survive without those authorities. At other times, I have gained power within an institution such as my time on various university boards and student organizations as an undergraduate that allowed me to make changes effecting individuals other than myself (it helped that my executive boards for the student organizations I ran were handpicked by me--including handpicking one member who I knew would disagree with most of my ideas). Since those days, however, I have learned that true independence is undesirable--while relying on authorities is distasteful, I have found that it is important to rely on other people for various specializations. So while one can have the 'power of independence', it is my belief that independence as a form is social power is either a dead end or an illusion (or false conscience, if you will). Sometimes in those more institutional roles, I've had varying degrees of power where I have had agenda items given to me by administrators or have had to consider the opinions of my constituents (although in the debate of increasing the general education requirements at my undergraduate institution, I went against what I assumed my constituent desires would be by voting and speaking in favor of the changes). With power granted by an institution, there are clear limits and rules bound by governing documents, those with more power than oneself, and sometimes "the people" (although, generally speaking, "the people" only have the illusion of power and their wishes are only followed if there is fear of a dissolution of the structure).

So far these anecdotes have not really gotten at the nature of social power, here I'm defining nature to mean the 'essentials'. The title to this post gives a hint, but it is deceptive as well. In life, I have found that in order to acquire power one needs power of one form or another--whether it is Obama's oratorical power, Caesar's strategic power (the power of his family connections didn't hurt either), etc. It is the end part that is deceptive though because while I believe that power can be an end in itself, I also believe power can have other ends. Sometimes individuals desire and obtain power for the purpose of maintaining the "old guard" with its structure, ways, and privileges for the then current elite (e.g. the Roman Senate in the late Republic, the Bush administration, etc.) Conversely, there are those who seek power (or at least claim to--we can't read their minds) for the purpose of change and destrcution of the "old guard" (e.g. Gorbachev, although I don't believe him; the Gracchi, Caesar, although he likely had additional motivators; and Obama, although it is too early to tell). It should be noted that when Napoleon first rose to power it was on populist message of change and destruction of the European monarchies (Beethoven originally dedicated a symphony to Napoleon for this reason) and while change did come, Napoleon's motives were clearly not the ones he claimed as he crowned himself emperor and proceeded to try to take the world by force (Beethoven changed his mind about dedicating the symphony to Napoleon on this news). Thus, there is considerable skepticism about the true motivations for those who seek power for the sake of change (incidentally, I voted for, donated to, and even did some door knocking for Obama's campaing--but then my favorite US President is FDR whom I consider to be the United State's most successful dictator).

So I return to the quesiton for a third and final time: what is the nature of social power? Simply put, the nature of social power is to force one's own ideas on to others--whether those ideas are about preserving a structure and "way of life" or whether those ideas are changing the way people view the world. Social power is as intangible as knowledge and information and as concrete as an individual at the top of an organization's 'pyramid of power'. It is as basic as a spouse influencing their spouse to try out a new restaurant or as complex as leading a nation in a time of war. One can obtain power over oneself, convince a small band, or subjugate nations--the more power one seeks, the more power one needs to obtain that end. While ideas have social power, if a person does not have the power of written or spoken word then the person can only obtain a limited set of power with that idea (although if one of the people he convinces to follow him and his idea has the power of spoken or written word then the powers can be combined to create more power, but then it is shared power).

To quickly sum up this, admittedly meandering, post: power begets power but the end goal of power is to force others to accept one's vision (which can be interpreted as power as well, but I am separating the two here--where power is the process to get what one wants and when one already has it that is no longer power, per se, since at that point it is just 'accepted' and one doesn't have to make other's agree with an idea or force it on to another person). Although, I will freely admit that I have sought power for the sake of power, but to me information is power and the more I can know then the more I understand how things work and can find ways to subvert the system or use the current system to achieve my goals, but then this does not always fit well with my ethical imperative that I can do whatever I want as long as I harm nobody when I know the truth is that you cannot do anything without harming somebody else in one way or another. So it's nice to have an illusion that power goes beyond an end to itself, at least. Marx saw knowledge as a power that could be objectified through the creation of intellectual products and science (Tucker 1978:285). To me knowledge is the ultimate power as it allows one to understand the whole and all of the individual pieces, knowing which ones can be subverted and which ones can be used to reach a certain point. Knowledge also allows one to understand that power gained by certain means, such as those granted by an institution, often comes with constraints that cannot be broken without severing the source of power--thus an individual that rises to power granted by an institution may find that while they are able to change the institution to a degree they also end up serving the interests of the institution and thus reinforce it. Similarly, while one can gain individual freedom through rebellion against authority may gain the power to be dependent from that authority, possibly all authorities, but ultimately they must depend on somebody for some things. The way power is acquired and the goals for acquiring power often determine if its ends will be for nefarious purposes or for ideological reasons and changes that might be necessary.

*Update 9 Feb 2009*

I was watching M*A*S*H this evening and the following line was said by Charles Winchester after he finds out Hawkeye and BJ have gotten a bathtub "Your middle-class sense of decency and fair play will overcome the malice you now bear me, and soon I shall be luxuriating in that canvas Xanadu. And if that craps out, I'll just bribe you silly." When that didn't prove to have results, Winchester threatened blackmail (telling the camp) and got the access to it he wanted. Social power at work. Continuing on the 'popular culture' kick, I also realized a discussion of social power could not be complete without mentioning "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd (lyrics), some of the better nuggets include:

Sweeney Todd: The history of the world, my love-- 

Mrs. Lovett: Save a lot of graves
 Do a lot of relatives favours 

Sweeney Todd: --Is those below serving those up above 

and

Sweeney Todd: For what’s the sound of the world out there? 
[...]
Sweeney Todd: It’s man devouring man, my dear

The entire story of Sweeney Todd is made possible by an abuse of social power
as illustrated by these quotes. Both of these examples of social power
demonstrate 'evil' uses of it.

Another form of social power that I was recently reminded of is one's ability to
assert oneself onto another, leave an impression. This is a particularly useful
form of social power when interviewing for a job (or in this case a prospective
grad student). This is social power on the micro level, where personal favors
(as mentioned in the Sweeney Todd lyrics) also falls but these micro level social
powers are often needed to rise to higher levels of social power.