POWERSHIFT ASSUMPTIONS

by Alvin Toffler

Because the subject is so fraught with both personal and political controversy, any book on power should be expected to lay out its main assumptions and, preferably, to make plan the underlying model of power on which it is based. No such statement can ever be complete, since it is impossible to define--or even to recognize--all one's assumptions. Nevertheless, even a partially successful effort can be useful to both writer and reader.

Here, then, are some of the assumptions from which Powershift spring:

  1. Power is inherent in all social systems and in all human relationships. It is not a thing but an aspect of an and all relationships among people. Hence it is inescapable and neutral, intrinsically neither good nor bad.
  2. The "power system" includes everyone--no one is free of it. But one person's power loss is not always another's gain.
  3. The power system in any society is subdivided into smaller and smaller power subsystems nested within one another. Feedback links these subsystems to one another, and to the larger systems of which they are part. Individuals are embedded in many different, though related, power subsystems.
  4. The same person may be power-rich at home and power-poor at work, and so forth.
  5. Because human relationships are constantly changing, power relationships are also in constant process.
  6. Because people have needs and desires, those who can fulfill them hold potential power. Social power is exercised by supplying or withholding the desired or needed items and experiences.
  7. Because needs and desires are highly varied, the ways of meeting or denying them are also extremely varied. There are, therefore, many different "tool" or "levers" of power. Among them, however, VIOLENCE, WEALTH, and KNOWLEDGE are primary. Most other power resources derive from these.
  8. Violence, which is chiefly used to punish, is the least versatile source of power. Wealth, which can be used both to reward and punish, and which can be converted into many other resources, is a far more flexible tool of power. Knowledge, however, is the most versatile and basic, since it can help one avert challenges that might require the use of violence or wealth, and can often be used to persuade others to perform in desired ways out of perceived self-interest. Knowledge yields the highest-quality power.
  9. The relationships of classes, races, genders, professions, nations, and other social groupings are incessantly altered by shifts in population, ecology, technology, culture, and other factors. These changes lead to conflict and translate into redistributions of power resources.
  10. Conflict is an inescapable social fact.
  11. Power struggles are not necessarily bad.
  12. Fluctuations caused by simultaneous shifts of power in different subsystems may converge to produce radical shifts of power at the level of the larger system of which they are a part. This principle operates at all levels. Intra-psychic conflict within an individual can tear a whole family apart; power conflict among departments can tear a company apart; power struggles among regions can tear a nation apart.
  13. At any given moment some of the many power subsystems that comprise the larger system are in relative equilibrium while others are in a far-from-equilibrial condition. Equilibrium is not necessarily a virtue.
  14. When power systems are far-from-equilibrial, sudden, seemingly bizarre shifts may occur. This is because when a system or subssystem is highly unstable, nonlinear effects multiply. Big power inputs may yield small results. Small events can trigger the downfall of a regime. A slice of burnt toast can lead to a divorce.
  15. Chance matters. The more unstable the system, the more chance matters.
  16. Equality of power is an improbable condition. Even if it is achieved, chance will immediately produce new inequalities. So will attempts to rectify old inequalities.
  17. Inequalities at one level can be balanced at another level. For this reason, it is possible for a power balance to exist between two or more entities, even when inequalities exist among their various subsystems.
  18. It is virtually impossible for all social systems and subsystems to be simultaneously in perfect balance and for power to be shared equally among all groups. Radical action may be needed to overthrow an oppressive regime, but some degree of inequality is a function of change itself.
  19. Perfect equality implies changelessness, and is not only impossible but undesirable. In a world in which millions starve, the idea of stopping change is not only futile but immoral. The existence of some degree of inequality is not, therefore, inherently immoral; what is immoral is a system which freezes the maldistribution of those resources that give power. It is doubly immoral when that maldistribution is based on race, gender, or other inborn traits.
  20. Knowledge is even more maldistributed than arms and wealth. Hence a redistribution of knowledge (and especially knowledge about knowledge) is even more important than, and can lead to, a redistribution of the other main power resources.
  21. Overconcentration of power resources is dangerous. (Examples: Stalin, Hitler, and so on. Other examples are too numerous to itemize.)
  22. Underconcentraton of power resources is equally dangerous. The absence of strong government in Lebanon has turned that poor nation into a synonym for anarchic violence. Scores of groups vie for power without reference to any agreed conception of law or justice or any enforceable constitutional or other restrictions.
  23. If both overconcentration and underconcentration of power result in social horror, how much concentrated power is too much? Is there a moral basis for judging? The moral basis for judging whether power is over- or under-concentrated is directly related to the difference between "socially necessary order" and "surplus order."
  24. Power granted to a regime should be just sufficient to provide a degree of safety from real (not imagined) external threat, plus a modicum of internal order and civility. This degree of order is socially necessary, and hence morally justifiable. Order imposed over and above that needed for civil society to function, order imposed merely to perpetuate a regime, is immoral.
  25. There is a moral basis for opposing or even overthrowing the state that imposes "surplus order."
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