Back in the sixties, the Black Panthers popularized the slogan "Power to the People". More recently Patti Smith affirmed "People have the power". Yet to a greater and greater degree, especially in the US, which is the oldest modern democracy and seemingly should know better, people not only feel powerless but even willingly abdicate their power to "leaders". In fact this "representative democracy" seems to have abandoned the concepts of representation and public service in favor of "leaders" who "govern" at the bequest and in the service of special interests and power brokers, including corporations and corporate alliances within industries especially. However, no government can survive without the consent or at least the acquiescence of the governed.

Government is the application of power to contain and control the individuals who compose society. Government is not society but a tool of society. Most commonly government is the tool used by one subset of society to contain and control the rest. Society is the actual, immediate, living, and quite spontaneously informal interaction between people going about their lives with all that entails. For the most part all that entails is relatively harmonious, inherently self-regulating, and generally the product of consensual decisions. This is true even in cultures which glorify violence, cultivate fear, make selfishness and material possessions the highest virtues, and perennially find new enemies to replace the old vanquished ones, cultures such as our own. In spite of all these forces working against natural human sociability and cooperation, most day to day human interactions proceed amicably; and, if you are looking for it, care for each other is far more predominate than attempts at harm.

The obvious lesson here would move us to less government and greater self-regulation, but in fact the opposite is true. In a great many, very real ways, the average citizen is less free today and is under far more regulation in the course of their daily existence than was the feudal serf. As Lord Acton said "All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Still we seek "great men" to "lead" us and allow the perpetual growth of government as an inevitability.

Central to the puzzle this presents is the historical refinement of power. If we look to the ancients such as the Egyptians or the Romans or to the medieval world virtually up to modern times, it's easy to see power as the primary tool of government and violence as the primary expression of power. In parts of the world this is still true. When the violence of power is open, in plain view of all, its inherent limitations become obvious, not immediately, all at once, nor even everywhere or in all situations. A great deal of this kind of government as power as violence is directed by one relatively homogeneous group against another, the occupiers whose superior force of weaponry allows them to oppress the occupied, the slave-owners who contain the slave class through direct force of arms, ownership of the social system, and the judicious use of overseers and enforcers who come both from the slave class and their own lower strata.

Inevitably, however, we have a relative few constraining and controlling a relative many. Doing this creates a tension between the rulers and the ruled which is always present and which can always be resolved by the ruled if they are willing to risk everything to depose their oppressors. The degree of violence the rulers can project effectively against the ruled determines directly how much control they can exert, but there is always an upper-limit, a point beyond which continued acquiescence is more distasteful than the pain which can be inflicted in the face of rebellion. When this equation reaches a critical mass, as it did in the US in 1776 and France in 1789 we have a revolution.

This historical reality has always been apparent to the ruling classes who gradually developed an answer to it. It's not a new answer. In fact it has been with us as long as kings who were proclaimed to be divine and the partnerships of states and religions. In recent times, beginning shortly after the American Revolution, it has undergone successive refinements, however.

As long as any government can convince its population of its benign character and imbue them with its necessity, it can do anything in actuality it chooses. The management of appearances supercedes the application of naked force. Violence, to be sure, is the ultimate lever, but it is cloaked in ways that make it seem that it is only applied to those who "deserve it" and is used for the protection of the rest of us. Thus the fact that US incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation on earth and the fact that nearly half of all black males under 40 are somewhere in the criminal justice system as I write, are ignored and accepted amid a cultivated fear of criminal violence that does not recognize the causes of that violence nor the contribution of corporations and government to it.

The solution cuts across and against the grain of popular culture which enhances passivity and promotes extraordinarily shallow values. It may practically begin for most people by turning their televisions off. It continues with informed analysis, communication with other living humans, and the rebuilding of communities, both locale and interest-based. We all know that governments lie. It is our responsibility to determine the truth and share it with others. This takes work. It takes research, thought, and ultimately risk. It takes engagement and participation in the processes of democracy. In many cases it will take the rediscovery of these processes and their patient implementation.

The opportunity for this is available to us. It is inherent in the Constitution. That makes us extremely fortunate. Yet even without the provision of law, the opportunity cannot be taken away completely. This is the meaning of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are not powerless if we choose not to be, especially within a society as committed to the externals of equality and the ideals of humane governance as our own. When push comes to shove, the unjust ruler must rely on common people like ourselves to carry out his injustice. Today he must also make that injustice appear somehow just. When he fails to do that, the orders are not executed. At that moment as at every other, we the people are in control. It has always been so. It is simply up to us to realize it and act upon it. And there never has been a time of greater urgency in this regard than today.

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