Doc Edward Morbius ⭕Often for the otherwise impotent the one way they can achieve any agency is to obstruct others.
@CarlMuckenhoupt Freedom and power to me describe different elements of goal-attainment.
Power refers to the active and instrumental element. That is, power is the specific capacity to initiate change.
Freedom refers to constraints on power, a sort of negative space. Freedom is the ability to act without inhibition, but it isn't the action itself.
So ... closely related, yes. Negative spaces, yes. Synonyms: no, though clearly closely related.
4/end/
#Tootstorm #power #freedom #vetocracy #HighSpeedRail #CaliforniaHSR #JKGalbraith #CodignPower #CompensatoryPower #ConditionedPower #AnatomyOfPower #FrancisFukuyama
Vetocracy: I'd been thinking recently (and thought I'd posted) on the notion of a politics of veto emerging where numerous actors of roughly equal strength exist. That is, no one power bloc can make things happen, but numerous single parties can keep things from happening.
I've just learned that Francis Fukuyama coined the term vetocracy to describe this, and for about a decade has applied this term to the US and other political scenes.
Which makes me think I may be on to something.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/A-few-steps-to-overcome-American-vetocracy-9222920.php
(A repost / typo correction from about a year ago: https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/104766273196363592)
@cadadr More on Fukuyama and #vetocracy
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13352946/francis-fukuyama-ezra-klein
@cadadr Hey, you're the economist ;-)
So: this is my hypothesis, and it's a notion I'm advancing, can't say it's proven.
Generally, there's the problem in economics of diminishing marginal value of wealth. If we're strictly looking at this as a quantitative (cardinal) effect, then that's true.
But with Mssrs Smith & Hobbes guidance, and seeing wealth as power, the advantages of being No. 1 seem more apparent.
Part of this becomes a question of how wealth manifests, and I've just today run across Francis Fukuyama's #vetocracy suggestion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetocracy) which mirrors a notion I've been kicking around for a bit (Fukuyama seems to have beat me by about 4 years, so I'm getting closer to novel notions).
At the hyperrich level, more wealth is both a mix of doing and preventing others from acting. In both cases, having more absolute wealth seems to translate directly to power, even if that's only expressed as bluffs or projected threat.
See also Zipf and Power Law distributions and some of the associated characteristics. Winner-take-all phenomena as well.
I've not fully convinced myself, but I'm reasonably confident it's at least a strong possibility / major mechanism.
Vetocracy: AI'd been thinking recently (and thought I'd posted) on the notion of a politics of veto emerging where numerous actors of roughly equal strength exist. That is, no one power bloc can make things happen, but numerous single parties can keep things from happening.
I've just learned that Francis Fukiyama coined the term vetocracy to describe this, and for about a decade has applied this term to the US and other political scenes.
Which makes me think I may be on to something.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/A-few-steps-to-overcome-American-vetocracy-9222920.php