Power is older than Adam. Yet, it must have evolved considerably in the ten thousand years we know as civilization. We could view the power elite as a kind of symbiotic parasite, merged with the social organism like chromosomes or mitochondria within the cell. This parasite plays a key role in the development of society. It evolves along with its host, gaining influence over time.
There have always been elites: hereditary chieftains, warlords and nobility, captains of industry, nouveaux riches, corporate empires. One way or another, such groups have always been well placed to dominate society. Of course, there has also been resistance to this domination—and competition among the powerful themselves, who enjoy privilege that motivates them and positions them well to refine their control and adapt to resistance.
Power may be a strange concept to people content with more modest goals, struggling to make ends meet. Religions prescribe fair practices through which society can function in relative harmony. Yet, ironically, it was Jesus who articulated the rule of history: those who have shall get more, and those who have not will forfeit even what they have. Henry George said something parallel in the 19th century: wages never increase in proportion to the wealth of society. Quite the contrary, today we see unions floundering and governments subservient to corporations, wealth obscenely concentrated in ever fewer hands. How is that possible?
While most people’s wants are modest and straightforward, some people demand far more and intend to get it. This puts ordinary folk in an awkward position. They must devote resources of time, energy, and money they don’t have, just in order to defend their modest station against the intentions of the more aggressive. They are not in a good position to adapt quickly to the inventive strategies of the elite, who count on the masses to be distracted, passive, short sighted, busy repaying their debts, looking the other way.
Social movements over the centuries that challenge the unequal distribution of wealth have inadvertently strengthened the stranglehold of power, by training it to adapt to resistance with ever subtler strategies. Power has evolved to be less visible and more devious. Discretion is the lesser part of power, which has the leisure to plan and plot. Cool heads pull strings in back rooms, hire mercenaries, buy up media to control what the potential resistance believes. How many of the hundred richest people can you name?
Is history just the story of the evolving ability of the rich to dominate the poor? Is a revolution possible that does not eventually revert to the business as usual founded on greed? The masses are at a disadvantage. For, only through poverty and homelessness can one secede from dependency on the modern economy. Instead, we collude with our masters by playing their games: every time we buy one of their widgets, we add to their power and the widening gulf between us. Through savings, investment, and retirement funds, we lend them the means to tighten their grip. Through agreeing to a governmental structure which they are skilled to manipulate and control, we underwrite our domination. It was clearer in the days of powdered wigs who was “them.” Now the lines of class and of responsibility are blurred, even as the middle class dissolves back into a peasantry and an aristocracy. Unless we can understand the evolution of power well enough to think ahead of it, we will always be on the defensive. Worse, we will always be part of the problem, inadvertently working for the enemy.