The Nature of Power and Liberty
This essay could be a book, and it needs the help of biologists, ecologists, historians and anthropologists to fact check and give further insight. Maybe one day it will be such a thing.
For now it is the insights I’ve gathered from living, studying history and studying economics as well as knowing a thing or two about the natural world.
The nature of power and liberty is fundamental to living in liberal societies such as our capitalist democracies, failure to understand these forces will be our destruction and lead to authoritarianism.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
The nature of nature
I despise the word unnatural. Not because it doesn’t have a place, but because it’s used incredibly poorly. People mostly use that word to talk about the things that humans have created, but to me the use of that word in that way is the height of arrogance. We are NOT divorced or separated from nature, we are completely related, in fact, we are a part of it.
We just so happen to be the undisputed apex predator.
We are so good at being apex predators that we have found ways to make trees unrecognizable, use the skin of other mammals to adorn our bodies or our seat cushions, we can even break through metal or instantly evaporate millions of life forms should we wish to.
The only person that man need fear; is fellow man.
There are predators and prey within our human world, people who can kill their fellow men without consequences or take resources without consequences. Today we live in a world that is largely peaceful after the horrors of the second world war. We have chosen to focus on preying on everything else and stop preying on each other as much.
Well, that’s falling out of fashion, Hamas attacks, violates and kills Israelis (a foolish move as the weaker predator) and Israel has in turn razed the Gaza strip. The Israelis have even begun discussion of the real estate value once all Gazan’s have left, one way or another. Meanwhile Russia also takes land away from Ukrainians, they’ve even taken their children to raise as Russians and sell by level of obedience. Humans are hunting humans for gain, in the name of security.
Apex predators these days don’t kill to eat as was the case in what others may call the natural world, they kill to grow in power, to maintain or better their position in the food chain. The cold hard logic of survival of the fittest still holds true for us and it will; always.
People believe the method is the power to achieve what you want, and the reward is the freedom from external or foreign influences or adversaries. The truth though, is that the method and the reward are the same thing. Power is the method and power is the reward.
The nature of power
Power tends to be self perpetuating. Let's consider a few thought experiments.
In the case of money as power it's pretty clear, let's imagine the case of two people making the same investment but one can invest $1000 and the other a $1 million. Let's assume a yearly ROI of 5%. After 10 years, the first person will have made a $630 return, the second person will have made a $630K return. The same decision caused one person to make $629K more than the other because of the initial conditions even though both people committed the same action. Our economic systems drive towards this natural unbalance, like a game of monopoly where one person starts with ten times the cash as everyone else. Is it possible that another player would win? Yes, though it isn’t likely. In our world the rules of the game aren’t luck based, but the initial differences in amount of money to play with are actually vastly larger.
Now let's consider a situation that doesn't have to do with money. Imagine there are three people standing within a few meters of each other, one has a gun, one has a knife and one has only his fists. They all fear that they will kill each other, naturally this means that they would like to take away power from each other. The first thing the man with the gun will do is ask the man with the knife to hand him his knife, and more likely than not the man with the knife will do so because a gun could kill very quickly and easily. Now it is not certain that the man with the gun would aim correctly, but the odds are high enough that the man with the knife will usually not take his chances.
This is the self perpetuating nature of power, the more you can force others to do as you want the more power they’ll feel forced to give you (unless they can successfully hide their real power). So power tends to agglomerate.
Power is also fluctuating, every living entity waxes and wanes in their ability to act. For example, in our three man example, the man with a gun must eventually sleep and if either of the other two men take advantage of the opportunity they can take the gun or even kill the man with the gun. So even though that person was the most powerful when they were all awake once he fell asleep, he was in a weakened state that allowed the others to gain advantage.
Rest or negligence isn’t the only mechanic for which power wanes, of course: it can be as a “wound” from a confrontation, another entity gaining power at a faster rate or previously uncoordinated entities coalescing.
This last one is particularly prescient. Often to rule over a certain population or ecosystem, a majority of power is not required. A minority can hold power and as long as the majority do not coordinate to remove the minority, they can keep control and influence over power and resources.
For example, let’s consider a man with an assault rifle who is handing out food to a hundred people who are not armed. He keeps half the food for himself and distributes the food equally between the rest. If individuals, angry with their lot, tried to attack, they would get shot. However, if all one hundred people rushed the man with the gun, at least a few, maybe many, would die, but they would certainly get the gun and apprehend the man.
This is a classic collective action problem, in reality these are incredibly difficult to achieve because the conditions are never as simplistic as the ones in any of the thought experiments I’ve provided. But rest assured, they do occur. We usually call these revolutions, a coalition of people taking the seat of power and control from a tyrant or ineffective ruler.
This is because power isn’t just about resources and capabilities, power is about purpose in alignment with resources and capabilities. For example, if you have a group of people try to construct a building without coordinating or speaking to each other, the building won’t get built fast, people will get in each other's way and more likely than not the building will crumble. However, if the building follows one single vision and all workers coordinate a plan to construct it will be done quicker and better.
If forces pull an object in all directions this object won’t move or it’ll move erratically, instead objects going in a single direction in line with a clear goal can move more effectively. Which is why one individual has a natural advantage over many when there’s a similar amount of resources controlled by the individual when compared to the many.
The nature of liberty
There is no distinction between freedom and power.
Power is defined as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way”.
Freedom is defined as “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants”.
These two definitions are tautological.
It is crucial to understand that to be the most free, means to be the most powerful. Most able to do all that you want to do without external push back.
This is why America has been the freest nation for the last eighty years and the people in America were some of the freest people in the world.
But two things have lessened the power of most Americans.
America’s power has fallen worldwide, with their closest allies, the Europeans, losing share of world GDP (something destined to happen post-colonialism). The Americans have actually remained pretty stable in their share of world GDP all things considered, but American politics have devolved in such a way that one administration’s position almost completely undoes that of the previous one.
Don’t get it twisted, America is still the most powerful country (and therefore free to do as it pleases like shooting down dinghies in Venezuelan waters without due process). But its power is visibly waning, its alliances are fewer and less robust every passing day.
This overall loss in American influence has been a reason why most Americans have lost power and therefore freedom, but it doesn’t touch with a ten foot pole the real reason most Americans have become less free.
And that is that the balance of power WITHIN the U.S. has shifted immensely, wealth has likely never been more concentrated in the history of the U.S. and therefore, although the amount of power the country as a collective has did not change all that much. Most Americans have lost the power their parents had at their same age.
In the United States, children are told to pledge allegiance to the flag, that pledge goes as follows: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
Some complain about the nature of the pledge, saying it feels a little culty, and well it certainly does have a religious tint to it but I think the wording of it, especially the end, is of crucial importance.
If the U.S. is a country of justice and liberty for all, and let’s focus on liberty for the purposes of this essay, then by the logic we have proven earlier, that requires that we put power in the hands of ALL the people. But power is by its very nature relative. A rat is powerful next to an ant and a rat is powerless next to a cat. So giving the people “freedoms” and “rights” is necessary but not sufficient to ensure liberty for all. To do that, we must actively curb power in the hands of the most powerful so that our relative power never becomes easily trampled on. This is a collective action problem. Either through innovation, knowhow or charisma, people will arise who are capable of accruing large amounts of power. And it is our job as a people to recognize when this is happening and stop it before a person becomes a tyrant who has enough power to abuse others without consequences.
Tyrants come in all shapes and sizes, and these days they are harder and harder to identify. But if we want liberty for all we better get better at identifying them, and better yet at curving their power.
For now it is the insights I’ve gathered from living, studying history and studying economics as well as knowing a thing or two about the natural world.
The nature of power and liberty is fundamental to living in liberal societies such as our capitalist democracies, failure to understand these forces will be our destruction and lead to authoritarianism.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
The nature of nature
I despise the word unnatural. Not because it doesn’t have a place, but because it’s used incredibly poorly. People mostly use that word to talk about the things that humans have created, but to me the use of that word in that way is the height of arrogance. We are NOT divorced or separated from nature, we are completely related, in fact, we are a part of it.
We just so happen to be the undisputed apex predator.
We are so good at being apex predators that we have found ways to make trees unrecognizable, use the skin of other mammals to adorn our bodies or our seat cushions, we can even break through metal or instantly evaporate millions of life forms should we wish to.
The only person that man need fear; is fellow man.
There are predators and prey within our human world, people who can kill their fellow men without consequences or take resources without consequences. Today we live in a world that is largely peaceful after the horrors of the second world war. We have chosen to focus on preying on everything else and stop preying on each other as much.
Well, that’s falling out of fashion, Hamas attacks, violates and kills Israelis (a foolish move as the weaker predator) and Israel has in turn razed the Gaza strip. The Israelis have even begun discussion of the real estate value once all Gazan’s have left, one way or another. Meanwhile Russia also takes land away from Ukrainians, they’ve even taken their children to raise as Russians and sell by level of obedience. Humans are hunting humans for gain, in the name of security.
Apex predators these days don’t kill to eat as was the case in what others may call the natural world, they kill to grow in power, to maintain or better their position in the food chain. The cold hard logic of survival of the fittest still holds true for us and it will; always.
People believe the method is the power to achieve what you want, and the reward is the freedom from external or foreign influences or adversaries. The truth though, is that the method and the reward are the same thing. Power is the method and power is the reward.
The nature of power
Power tends to be self perpetuating. Let's consider a few thought experiments.
In the case of money as power it's pretty clear, let's imagine the case of two people making the same investment but one can invest $1000 and the other a $1 million. Let's assume a yearly ROI of 5%. After 10 years, the first person will have made a $630 return, the second person will have made a $630K return. The same decision caused one person to make $629K more than the other because of the initial conditions even though both people committed the same action. Our economic systems drive towards this natural unbalance, like a game of monopoly where one person starts with ten times the cash as everyone else. Is it possible that another player would win? Yes, though it isn’t likely. In our world the rules of the game aren’t luck based, but the initial differences in amount of money to play with are actually vastly larger.
Now let's consider a situation that doesn't have to do with money. Imagine there are three people standing within a few meters of each other, one has a gun, one has a knife and one has only his fists. They all fear that they will kill each other, naturally this means that they would like to take away power from each other. The first thing the man with the gun will do is ask the man with the knife to hand him his knife, and more likely than not the man with the knife will do so because a gun could kill very quickly and easily. Now it is not certain that the man with the gun would aim correctly, but the odds are high enough that the man with the knife will usually not take his chances.
This is the self perpetuating nature of power, the more you can force others to do as you want the more power they’ll feel forced to give you (unless they can successfully hide their real power). So power tends to agglomerate.
Power is also fluctuating, every living entity waxes and wanes in their ability to act. For example, in our three man example, the man with a gun must eventually sleep and if either of the other two men take advantage of the opportunity they can take the gun or even kill the man with the gun. So even though that person was the most powerful when they were all awake once he fell asleep, he was in a weakened state that allowed the others to gain advantage.
Rest or negligence isn’t the only mechanic for which power wanes, of course: it can be as a “wound” from a confrontation, another entity gaining power at a faster rate or previously uncoordinated entities coalescing.
This last one is particularly prescient. Often to rule over a certain population or ecosystem, a majority of power is not required. A minority can hold power and as long as the majority do not coordinate to remove the minority, they can keep control and influence over power and resources.
For example, let’s consider a man with an assault rifle who is handing out food to a hundred people who are not armed. He keeps half the food for himself and distributes the food equally between the rest. If individuals, angry with their lot, tried to attack, they would get shot. However, if all one hundred people rushed the man with the gun, at least a few, maybe many, would die, but they would certainly get the gun and apprehend the man.
This is a classic collective action problem, in reality these are incredibly difficult to achieve because the conditions are never as simplistic as the ones in any of the thought experiments I’ve provided. But rest assured, they do occur. We usually call these revolutions, a coalition of people taking the seat of power and control from a tyrant or ineffective ruler.
This is because power isn’t just about resources and capabilities, power is about purpose in alignment with resources and capabilities. For example, if you have a group of people try to construct a building without coordinating or speaking to each other, the building won’t get built fast, people will get in each other's way and more likely than not the building will crumble. However, if the building follows one single vision and all workers coordinate a plan to construct it will be done quicker and better.
If forces pull an object in all directions this object won’t move or it’ll move erratically, instead objects going in a single direction in line with a clear goal can move more effectively. Which is why one individual has a natural advantage over many when there’s a similar amount of resources controlled by the individual when compared to the many.
The nature of liberty
There is no distinction between freedom and power.
Power is defined as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way”.
Freedom is defined as “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants”.
These two definitions are tautological.
It is crucial to understand that to be the most free, means to be the most powerful. Most able to do all that you want to do without external push back.
This is why America has been the freest nation for the last eighty years and the people in America were some of the freest people in the world.
But two things have lessened the power of most Americans.
America’s power has fallen worldwide, with their closest allies, the Europeans, losing share of world GDP (something destined to happen post-colonialism). The Americans have actually remained pretty stable in their share of world GDP all things considered, but American politics have devolved in such a way that one administration’s position almost completely undoes that of the previous one.
Don’t get it twisted, America is still the most powerful country (and therefore free to do as it pleases like shooting down dinghies in Venezuelan waters without due process). But its power is visibly waning, its alliances are fewer and less robust every passing day.
This overall loss in American influence has been a reason why most Americans have lost power and therefore freedom, but it doesn’t touch with a ten foot pole the real reason most Americans have become less free.
And that is that the balance of power WITHIN the U.S. has shifted immensely, wealth has likely never been more concentrated in the history of the U.S. and therefore, although the amount of power the country as a collective has did not change all that much. Most Americans have lost the power their parents had at their same age.
In the United States, children are told to pledge allegiance to the flag, that pledge goes as follows: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
Some complain about the nature of the pledge, saying it feels a little culty, and well it certainly does have a religious tint to it but I think the wording of it, especially the end, is of crucial importance.
If the U.S. is a country of justice and liberty for all, and let’s focus on liberty for the purposes of this essay, then by the logic we have proven earlier, that requires that we put power in the hands of ALL the people. But power is by its very nature relative. A rat is powerful next to an ant and a rat is powerless next to a cat. So giving the people “freedoms” and “rights” is necessary but not sufficient to ensure liberty for all. To do that, we must actively curb power in the hands of the most powerful so that our relative power never becomes easily trampled on. This is a collective action problem. Either through innovation, knowhow or charisma, people will arise who are capable of accruing large amounts of power. And it is our job as a people to recognize when this is happening and stop it before a person becomes a tyrant who has enough power to abuse others without consequences.
Tyrants come in all shapes and sizes, and these days they are harder and harder to identify. But if we want liberty for all we better get better at identifying them, and better yet at curving their power.