Every political theory begins with an unspoken premise: what is power?

Before we argue about who should rule, or how institutions should be designed, we have already decided—often unconsciously—what kind of thing power is. That decision shapes everything that follows.

There are, at root, two incompatible answers.

The first treats power as something that can be possessed.

It is imagined as an object: a resource that can be accumulated, inherited, transferred, seized. Power belongs to someone. Others must comply.

Its central question is simple: who holds it?

Monarchies answer: one.
Aristocracies: a few.
Democracies: the many, in rotation.

But across these variations, the underlying assumption remains unchanged. Power itself is treated as a stable entity — something that endures until taken away.

In this view:

• Offices carry power.

• Law contains power.

• Capital converts into power.

• Coercive capacity secures power.

Conflict becomes inevitable, because power is finite.
Consolidation becomes rational, because possession invites defense.
Revolution becomes cyclical, because frozen systems eventually fracture.

Even revolutions that claim to liberate the people tend to reproduce the same structure: power is seized, centralized, stabilized — and defended again.

From this perspective, politics is primarily about acquisition and preservation.

This understanding runs deep in the Western canon. From Thomas Hobbes, who grounded authority in sovereign concentration, to Niccolò Machiavelli, who refined the techniques of maintaining rule, to Max Weber, who defined power as the probability of imposing one's will despite resistance — the differences concern how power is secured, not whether it is a thing to be secured.

The ontology remains static.

The alternative view begins with a different premise:
power is not a thing. It is a happening.

It does not reside in offices, weapons, or constitutions. It exists only in the moment a command is followed, a norm is upheld, a decision is accepted.

Power is less like property and more like electricity: it appears only when a circuit is completed.
Less like a building and more like speech: it exists only when heard and acknowledged.

If A issues an order and B complies, power exists in that instant.
If B refuses, power dissolves — regardless of what documents say.

Under this ontology, power is relational and event-based.

Its defining features are:

Authority is not granted once and for all. It is continuously renewed — or withdrawn. Every act of compliance is a micro-authorization.

Power originates in individuals’ recognition. No structure generates authority independently of the ongoing consent of those who sustain it.

Higher levels of authority emerge from aggregated lower-level recognitions. Institutions are recursive stabilizations of repeated events of compliance.

Power does not persist by default. It must be reproduced in each interaction. It is never permanently secured.

This view appears in quieter strands of political thought.

Hannah Arendt distinguished power from violence, arguing that power arises from people acting together — and disappears when they stop.
Michel Foucault described power not as a centralized possession but as a network of relations.
Étienne de La Boétie observed that tyrants rule only because multitudes continue to serve.

These thinkers do not deny institutions. They relocate their foundation.

Imagine a manager with full formal authority: appointment letter, salary, recognized position.

One morning, every subordinate calmly decides not to respond.
No revolt. No violence.
They simply stop complying.

Where is the manager’s power?

From the property view, it still exists — in title and contract.
From the event view, it has evaporated. The relational event that constituted authority has ceased.

The institution may remain.
But power, as lived reality, has dissolved.

Modern systems rarely rely primarily on overt violence. They rely on raising the cost of withdrawal.

To refuse compliance often means:

• Loss of livelihood

• Loss of social standing

• Loss of institutional access

• Legal vulnerability

In this sense, many stable regimes do not preserve power by owning it, but by making revocation prohibitively expensive.

This insight shifts the focus of politics.
The question is no longer only: Who governs?
It becomes: How difficult is it to withdraw recognition?

Where withdrawal is structurally possible at low cost, power remains fluid.
Where withdrawal is punished, power appears solid.

The solidity is engineered.

Under the property ontology:

1. Power is accumulated.

2. Power is defended.

3. Power hardens.

4. Power is eventually overthrown.

5. The cycle restarts.

Under the event ontology:

1. Power is continuously negotiated.

2. Authority must justify itself repeatedly.

3. Institutions remain provisional.

4. Revocation is normalized.

5. Stability emerges from adaptability rather than entrenchment.

The first cycle treats revolution as reset.
The second treats revocability as routine.

The property view sees authority as a compound:
office + law + force + recognition → stable authority.

The event view describes a reversible reaction.

When recognition is withdrawn, the compound decomposes.
What seemed solid returns to its elemental form: individual capacity to grant or refuse compliance.

Power was never a substance.
It was a stabilized pattern of interactions.

If power is property, politics is about capturing it.

If power is event, politics is about ensuring it can always be interrupted.

The most fundamental democratic act is not winning authority.
It is preserving the structural possibility of withdrawing it.

Not seizure — but revocation.

Not permanence — but conditionality.

Power is not something rulers own.
It is something people lend.

And what is lent can, in principle, be recalled.

Every political theory begins with an unspoken premise: what is power?

Before we argue about who should rule, or how institutions should be designed, we have already decided—often unconsciously—what kind of thing power is. That decision shapes everything that follows.

There are, at root, two incompatible answers.

The first treats power as something that can be possessed.

It is imagined as an object: a resource that can be accumulated, inherited, transferred, seized. Power belongs to someone. Others must comply.

Its central question is simple: who holds it?

Monarchies answer: one.
Aristocracies: a few.
Democracies: the many, in rotation.

But across these variations, the underlying assumption remains unchanged. Power itself is treated as a stable entity — something that endures until taken away.

In this view:

• Offices carry power.

• Law contains power.

• Capital converts into power.

• Coercive capacity secures power.

Conflict becomes inevitable, because power is finite.
Consolidation becomes rational, because possession invites defense.
Revolution becomes cyclical, because frozen systems eventually fracture.

Even revolutions that claim to liberate the people tend to reproduce the same structure: power is seized, centralized, stabilized — and defended again.

From this perspective, politics is primarily about acquisition and preservation.

This understanding runs deep in the Western canon. From Thomas Hobbes, who grounded authority in sovereign concentration, to Niccolò Machiavelli, who refined the techniques of maintaining rule, to Max Weber, who defined power as the probability of imposing one's will despite resistance — the differences concern how power is secured, not whether it is a thing to be secured.

The ontology remains static.

The alternative view begins with a different premise:
power is not a thing. It is a happening.

It does not reside in offices, weapons, or constitutions. It exists only in the moment a command is followed, a norm is upheld, a decision is accepted.

Power is less like property and more like electricity: it appears only when a circuit is completed.
Less like a building and more like speech: it exists only when heard and acknowledged.

If A issues an order and B complies, power exists in that instant.
If B refuses, power dissolves — regardless of what documents say.

Under this ontology, power is relational and event-based.

Its defining features are:

Authority is not granted once and for all. It is continuously renewed — or withdrawn. Every act of compliance is a micro-authorization.

Power originates in individuals’ recognition. No structure generates authority independently of the ongoing consent of those who sustain it.

Higher levels of authority emerge from aggregated lower-level recognitions. Institutions are recursive stabilizations of repeated events of compliance.

Power does not persist by default. It must be reproduced in each interaction. It is never permanently secured.

This view appears in quieter strands of political thought.

Hannah Arendt distinguished power from violence, arguing that power arises from people acting together — and disappears when they stop.
Michel Foucault described power not as a centralized possession but as a network of relations.
Étienne de La Boétie observed that tyrants rule only because multitudes continue to serve.

These thinkers do not deny institutions. They relocate their foundation.

Imagine a manager with full formal authority: appointment letter, salary, recognized position.

One morning, every subordinate calmly decides not to respond.
No revolt. No violence.
They simply stop complying.

Where is the manager’s power?

From the property view, it still exists — in title and contract.
From the event view, it has evaporated. The relational event that constituted authority has ceased.

The institution may remain.
But power, as lived reality, has dissolved.

Modern systems rarely rely primarily on overt violence. They rely on raising the cost of withdrawal.

To refuse compliance often means:

• Loss of livelihood

• Loss of social standing

• Loss of institutional access

• Legal vulnerability

In this sense, many stable regimes do not preserve power by owning it, but by making revocation prohibitively expensive.

This insight shifts the focus of politics.
The question is no longer only: Who governs?
It becomes: How difficult is it to withdraw recognition?

Where withdrawal is structurally possible at low cost, power remains fluid.
Where withdrawal is punished, power appears solid.

The solidity is engineered.

Under the property ontology:

1. Power is accumulated.

2. Power is defended.

3. Power hardens.

4. Power is eventually overthrown.

5. The cycle restarts.

Under the event ontology:

1. Power is continuously negotiated.

2. Authority must justify itself repeatedly.

3. Institutions remain provisional.

4. Revocation is normalized.

5. Stability emerges from adaptability rather than entrenchment.

The first cycle treats revolution as reset.
The second treats revocability as routine.

The property view sees authority as a compound:
office + law + force + recognition → stable authority.

The event view describes a reversible reaction.

When recognition is withdrawn, the compound decomposes.
What seemed solid returns to its elemental form: individual capacity to grant or refuse compliance.

Power was never a substance.
It was a stabilized pattern of interactions.

If power is property, politics is about capturing it.

If power is event, politics is about ensuring it can always be interrupted.

The most fundamental democratic act is not winning authority.
It is preserving the structural possibility of withdrawing it.

Not seizure — but revocation.

Not permanence — but conditionality.

Power is not something rulers own.
It is something people lend.

And what is lent can, in principle, be recalled.