On Social Power

The Nature of Social Power
Isaac Christiansen

Social power according to Curry et al. (2008) is “The ability to control the behavior of others against their will.” Although parsimonious it is necessary to expand on this definition. Social power occurs through the exercise of other forms of power such as persuasive power, legal power, traditional power and prestige, state power, and economic power. All of those forms of power can exercise influence over and with others. Within organizations we see power through the establishment of hierarchy. Some manifestations of power are spread over populations i.e. (union organizing, grassroots organizing,) while others tend to concentrate in fewer hands (i.e. capital, political power).
One characteristic of extreme social power is that of avoiding accountability for ones actions. One diaphanous example of the exercise of this aspect of social power (the power for a state to act with complete unaccountability) in a geo-political context was the refusal of the United States to acknowledge and comply with the International Court of Justice’s ruling in 1986 over serious violations of international law in Nicaragua (Wikipedia, 2009). The United States was committed these crimes, was convicted in an international court, proceeded to claim that the court had no jurisdiction, and after the court ruled that it did have jurisdiction- the US was able to still avoid the official sanctions. This does not mean that this came without a cost to the US. It did lose further respect (prestige) in the eyes of the international community, but the international community was not powerful enough to enforce its sentence.
Why did the US not lose prestige in the eyes of its own population? Marx answers this clearly. “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas

(Marx 1845; Tucker 1978). Thus because the ownership of the media is concentrated in the hands of the same basic class interests in whose name the repression of the Sandanista movement took place, the close links between government and corporations, it was not deemed in their interest to disseminate and/or draw attention to this information.
It is important to examine the socio-economic context when discussing social power. Under a capitalist context it is clear that those who own the means of production have power over those who own only their labor power, which they must sell to the capitalist to continue existing. This dynamic in a capitalist society, is what compels people to engage in “irksome” labor. We must therefore also examine power dialectally, together with its antonym. Marx covers the origins of capital and its accumulation well, which is- to a degree- also a history of an accumulation of a particular kind of social power.
Many people conceptualize money as power. This works only because of a society’s recognition of money as being the most valid mediator of exchange. Once this is a society’s assumption we can then appreciate Marx’s eloquence on the subject. “I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly because the effect of ugliness- its deterrent power- is nullified by money (Marx 1844; Tucker 1978).”
When we look at those who are powerless in this, and other similar systems of production, history demonstrates that power is not simply in the hands of who we tend to identify as the “powerful”. The impoverished masses may also wield power as they did in Haiti, under Toussaint L’Overture. The ability to organize against “powerful oppressing interests” is itself a form of power. Resistance is the exercise of social power to the degree that it prevents the ruling classes (or the Power Elite) to desist in its exploitation. There is thus a tugging back and forth between the two, as both attempt to exert influence.
Social power can be found in trade unions and lobbying groups, in nation states, and in tribal councils. Social power is found also within academia, within industry, within a single company, within small groups and within the family. However, I think that it is important to include within any definition of social power that it can also be power with as opposed to power against or power over. It is important to realize that virtually all of mans achievements are social achievements and that they are the product of collective efforts. Within a Marxist conceptualization it becomes possible to envision a society free (or much lessoned) of class antagonisms and one in which “power with” becomes predominant. Thus although the collective exercises social power above any single individual, both its fruits and its “irksome labor” will be shared in with greater or lesser equality.


References:
Marx, Karl [1844] 1978. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” pp 66-125 in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition, edited by Robert C. Tucker New York W.W. Norton and Company.
Marx, Karl [1844] 1978. “The German Ideology” pp 146-200 in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition, edited by Robert C. Tucker New York W.W. Norton and Company.
Wikipedia “Nicaragua vs. United States” Accessed 02/02/2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_L%27Ouverture