Designing Future Systems: The Issue of Power

There are two forms of power operating in social systems: power over and power to. Power over refers to authority. It is the ability to control others through reward and punishment. Power to refers to the capacity to make things happen. It is the ability to influence and positively mobilize others so that ideas are implemented from the inside out, rather than imposed through commands. According to Russell Ackoff, these two forms of power behave very differently across social systems.

In less developed societies, power over and power to often go together. This is because those who implement decisions usually have little formal education. As societies become more educated, however, this relationship changes. In highly educated societies, power over and power to become negatively correlated. The more people understand, the less they respond to top-down decisions alone. This creates a serious challenge for totalitarian systems, in which decision-making relies primarily on control rather than deep participation.

What some fail to see is that authority cannot replace legitimacy in educated societies. Punishment may enforce conditional obedience, subjected to time and contextual limits, but it cannot produce sustained participation. In my view, the present situation in Iran is a clear example of this paradox. It is a highly educated society—more educated than many so-called high-income nations—and evidence of this can be seen in the fact that protests often emerge from universities. Yet despite this transformation toward a more educated society, its constitutional arrangements, governance models, and, most importantly, its Shiite-based institutions have not evolved accordingly.

In a society where a single center of authority relies too heavily on power over, and derives its legitimacy primarily through ideological commands, it gradually loses power to. And when power to disappears, power over eventually collapses as well, something we have been witnessing in Iran over recent decades.

Many people enjoy exercising power over others. This is not unique to Iran; it can also be observed in Western societies. However, it is rarely prudent for those in power to admit this openly. As a result, the retention of power over is often justified as a way of protecting society.

“Power over is almost always hypocritically justified by those who have it in terms of the interests of those over whom they exercise that power, almost never in terms of their own interests.”

R. Ackoff

 

 

References

- Ackoff's Fables: Irreverent Reflections on Business and Bureaucracy - 1991

Image (cover)

- Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek). Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi, illustrated manuscript. Munich.