Meaning and Origin of Power

Meaning and Origin of power

        Power, this ancient and controversial thing, which a lot of people seek through their entire life, is hard to define. Different people in different studying area has different opinions. Max Webber defines power as the capability or possibility for a man to achieve his own will, disregard the resistance from other actors. While Thomas Hobbes hold the view that power is the current method taken to receive any future benefits. For Bertrand Russell power is the generation of expectation. And Dennis Wrong has a developed version, saying that power is the ability to generate expectations from others.

        Emerson stands in a social relationship view instead of personal characteristic view observing power, not regarding power as an attribute of the actor, but a property of social relation. His main idea is that, power comes from social interdependence. The more A is dependent on B, B has more power on A. But what is heavy dependence and what is slight dependence? There are two variables of social dependence, A’s motivational investment in goals mediated by B and availability of those goals to A outside of the relation. It’s reasonable because it correspond to common sense. Everyone wants something(can be regarded as a goal), and no one can get these things merely by himself, for example when there is only one person alive, could he survive? Thus others play a critical role of one’s self-satisfactory and self-achievement and that why we are called social animals. When you have a goal, the more eager you want to achieve it and the less method you can use, the more dependent you are on your current way toward your goal. And that’s an explanation of dependence on the common sense’s view.

        Personally speaking, I think personal attribute is also important in forming power. From my experience, sometimes even A is dependent on B(on the condition that B is less dependent on A), A still can dominate B. A possible explanation is that A has more influential characteristic. In Chinese culture, Confucianism says that De(德), a pursue of personality perfection generates influence and power on others.

Dynamic of social power balance

Another thing about Emerson’s theory is that whether different power from different actors can be neutralized. This is a topic of power balance. For example, A is a beautiful popular girl and B is a normal guy, so B is more dependent on A to get love and A has power on B based on Emerson’s theory. While B is so smart and A is worried about her exam, assume B has the same power on A^[1]. So does that mean, all the power is neutralized? No, in this case, power still exists instead of disappear, but a pattern of “dominance” may not emerge.