Power

A Geometry of Individuals and Institutions

Notions of Power in our society are entailed in our myth of individualism. By myth we do not mean "untrue," but that there are a set of beliefs, historically set in our origins as a culture, that guide our interpretation of events that surround us.
We believe that power emerges from individual virtue. The myth says that success or failure, and wealth as a measure of success or failure, is determined by the character and behavior of the individual.
Power resides in naturally occurring markets. The market is the place where the work of individuals comes together, and by purchasing (really or metaphorically) in the market each of us has the power to recognize virtue. Thus, the emergence of virtue into power is a natural process.
We support this myth rhetorically.

Jefferson's yeoman farmer who acts as an individual to promulgate his power.
Horatio Alger and the narrative that even the humblest of American can succeed by hard work and other virtues.
Even the political and economic rise of the nation as a sign of the natural reward to virtue.

The rules that govern power are not natural but are created and perpetuated by humans
Socially: We live within codes of proper behavior. Those who violate those codes are punished. Those codes can change. They are not natural. In fact, we can challenge them and they will adapt.
Economic:

We have institutions such as credit that grant power to those we owe money to, to those who loan money, and to credit bureaus. If we violate the rules of credit, we will find the misery of power and the powerless. If someone misreports our credit, we learn our powerlessness. Laws try to remedy this balance. All is human invention.

Jobs are inventions that in a particular kind of economy define the relationships of power. If we have a job, our boss has power over us. We have rights that limit the bosses power, but we have to use the courts to enforce them. We can join institutions called "unions" to help protect our power.

Political: The vote is an institution for granting power to those who get the majority of votes. A President gains power even though only about 1/4 of the people vote for him (a majority of voters, but only 1/4 of the people). He attains power through the institution of election. But our political institutions require money to fuel them, so money -- another symbolic representation of value -- attains power over the politician who needs the money to get elected and thus to attain power through the electoral institution.
So, changeable human institutions distribute power

There are several ways in which power shapes the relationships in a society

Individual in a Power field. We all live within fields of power. If we violate the norms, the power field has ways of asserting its control over us through punishment of violation. Emmitt Tull died in such an expression of the costs of violation. Martin Luther King figured out how to turn the powerlessness of individuals against the field.
Community to Community. Because institutions are controlled by people power can be arrayed between community and community. Thus, the whites of the South attained power over the blacks through the system of American apartheid.

Power is geographically sited. Land, geographical territory is one of the ways in which power is symbolized. Communities compete for territory. Cross into the other territory and you lose the power you had in your own community. National boundaries function this way. But so do other territorialities. The Cicero march was about this concept of territory.
Power is organized. Power can be attained by organizing. King does this to alter the powerlessness of individuals in the segregated South. Movements assert their power as human institutions by organizing people into common action.
Power is active. It must be exercised to be maintained. Power competes with other power and asserts itself in struggles. But it also strengthens through joining with others. Thus, it unites and it competes.
Power uses institutions against institutions. Society is a matrix of power centers. Those who seek to change, seek to employ some power centers against others. Thus, King attempted to use the power center of the federal government over the state and local governments and the economic institutions of the South.