POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Human Nature, Immanence, Enrique Dussel
The 3 Theses of Power
● Previously
○ Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico (1994-Present)
○ Goal does not equal Political Revolution (change of regime, taking over the
existing state)
○ Goal was social revolution (remaking how power works)
■ From representation to participation
○ Empowering previously excluded groups
■ Women
■ Indigenous peoples
○ Decentralizing and subordinating authority
■ Mandar obedeciendo (rule by obeying)
■ Autonomous federated local communities were organized
○ Autonomy
■ Independence with interdependence
○ Decolonization and alternative globalization ‘from below’
■ 500 years of struggle
■ Against austerity and globalization as defined by the market
● Goals for today: reframe relationship between power, authority, government, and
democracy
○ Revising the Repressive/Coercive Hypothesis
● Guiding questions:
○ How do we define power?
■ A social relation?
■ An institution?
■ An expression of force?
■ ...and why does it matter?
● The all important “who cares”?
● Backgrounder: Steven Lukes’ on 3-D power
○ Conventional view: Power as “A exercises power over B when A affects B in a
manner contrary to B’s interests”
■ Recognize power as an effect, an influence, a relationship, when I make
you do something that either you don’t want to, or doesn’t directly benefit
you
■ Luke’s conventional view is too flat
■ 1) Modify behavior of others in decision-making processes
● Molding in peoples behaviors and how they contribute in the
democratic decision-making process
● For example, saying if you vote for candidates who will raise
minimum wage etc you’ll get kicked out of your job
■ 2) Agenda-shaping
● Limit and frame debate
● Circumscribe choices prior to democratic moment of decision
making
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
● The media we consume, the classes we take, shape and limit the
options we see as on the table when making decisions
■ 3) Domination
● Shapes, directs, constraints, without recognizable coercion or
constraint
○ Does not operate through framing the debate or setting the
agenda, but producing the consent of the governed.
● Ideology - Rule by Consent
○ Power as ideology
● What makes people vote against their interests? (Kansas Situation, Thomas Frank)
○ Kansas: From center of left-wing populist rebellion to one of the most
conservative states in the USA
○ State and federal legislation from kansas disproportionately hurts economic well-
being of working people, but still a “deep red” state
○ 1) Realignment of Republican Party to conservative social issues
○ 2) powerful media and cultural leaders frame debates in zero-sum and single
issue terms
■ Gun control
■ Abortion
■ ‘Social issue’ and cultural wars
○ 3) Ideological and economic shift in US means ‘self-interest’ as ‘class interest’
are neither transparent nor self-evident
■ Nor (especially at the time of writing) were any political parties
representing those interests
■ Other factors: gerrymandering, incumbent bias, party rationality
●Thesis 1: Power engenders and/or limits choice and consent
○ Conventional view is too flat; 3-D offers a more nuanced look at power relations
○ However, for Lukes, power is both guidance and constraint; a ‘power-over’
○ Power operates through a mixture of coercion and consent, achieved by the
powerful through various violent, ideological, and legitimately democratic means
■ Power operates through but is distinct from individuals
● The Chomsky-Foucault debate (1971)
○ What is Human nature?
○ Chomsky: Free expression, collaboration, self-actualization
■ All about coercion, oppression, and violence
■ Corollary: freedom means freedom from restraint;
■ A just world is one in which we are not oppressed by arbitrary powers
○ Foucault: The ‘self’ and the ‘individual’ are created by institutions
■ Technique, technology, and power. Interested in the methods by which
humans are created by institutions
■ Corollary: restraints are what create both us and our notion of freedom;
■ We are subjects (and our notions of freedom, of individuality, and our
value systems) are the effects of the power of various institutions
● We are the after effect of power, power produces us
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Goal does not equal political revolution (change of regime, taking over the existing state) Goal was social revolution (remaking how power works) Against austerity and globalization as defined by the market. Goals for today: reframe relationship between power, authority, government, and democracy. Conventional view: power as a exercises power over b when a affects b in a manner contrary to b"s interests . Recognize power as an effect, an influence, a relationship, when i make you do something that either you don"t want to, or doesn"t directly benefit you. 1) modify behavior of others in decision-making processes. Molding in peoples behaviors and how they contribute in the democratic decision-making process. For example, saying if you vote for candidates who will raise minimum wage etc you"ll get kicked out of your job. Circumscribe choices prior to democratic moment of decision making.
