As we denounce the folly of political power, it is necessary for us to articulate what is a proper definition of political power in order to avoid distrating semantic arguments. For example, some people may claim that a corporation has the power to harm consumers by raising prices (pricing power), which is nonsense to people who understand the nature of supply and demand in economics.
I propose the following definition to power: power is holding a right so dangerous that it would be unthinkable to grant it to everyone. In that sense it is bound to the institution of "public" law which exists above the regular "private" law applying to common mortals, thus making them subjects, and those who wield power, rulers.
Power rights can be easily discriminated from market rights in that they are cost-free. A man feels powerful when he can act at his own whim without facing any consequences for this act. At the extreme of power, a man can order the killing of thousands, or even millions, without being held accountable. This would obviously be unthinkable to a man without power.
Because power is cost-free, is it not tied down to material wealth. A man with his own private army may not have power if, should he order the killing of a single person, his army would face reprisal. However, if a man is only temporarily in charge of this army through election or political nomination, or by arriving at the front of it through revolutionary events, the destruction of the army will not materially matter to him unless he is himself personally held responsible for his acts. This makes him powerful. In a more commercial sense, a shareholder of a corporation is powerless. However the CEO may be powerful if the shareholders have only weak control over him and cannot hold him accountable for his acts. A political appointee to the Federal Reserve is obviously an immensely powerful man. In a sense, so is the postmaster. A privatization of a government-held enterprise can often become violent, as recent Russian history has shown.
Power can be quite banal, exercised simply for the pleasure of the powerful. Here in Paris it is commonplace to see motorcades carrying ministers violate traffic circulation rules. Although it makes sense to pay this cost for emergency vehicles, the work of ruling a country is not that much more important than that of running of a large corporation. Ministers do this simply because they can.
Power can be viciously violent but excused through some noble aim. Powerful people can torture others by claiming that it is necessary to protect the innocent.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Power is the ability (not the right) to act as judge in disputes with others or between others within a defined (but not necessarily agreed) scope.
Sovereignty is the special case in which power held by a single entity is not limited to any scope except location.
I can think of a few definitions, many of which are different ways of saying the same thing.
Power is the degree to which you can avoid punishment for violating property/liberty/self-ownership rights (from now on, called human rights).
Or, power is the lack of disincentive to violate the human rights of others (pretty much the same thing).
Power is the degree to which others have a disincentive (or lack of incentive) to defend their human rights if you violate them.
One thing is that power is always valuable -- you don't have power if nobody is willing to pay you to exert influence, whether or not you accept bribes. This is more of an acid test than a definition.
Power is a measure of the negative externalities of your behavior (another way of putting the first definition). It's how much other people unwillingly bear the cost of your decisions. This definition of power implies non-conservation -- theoretically, there could be a powerless world where everyone's actions are internalized, as well as a world where everyone's actions are likely to negatively affect others (where there are weak or non-existent property rights, for example). We anarcho-capitalists are fighting for the former.
I like the first and last ones because they're the closest definitions I can think of to being measurable. I would like to see a study that shows just how much incentive politicans have to make good laws -- in other words, how much they actually suffer if they do a bad job. And we already know how much harm bad laws can cause to people other than the lawmaker.
Power is simply exercising dominion or control over someone or something. Seems fairly simple to me.
asokoloski:Power is a measure of the negative externalities of your behavior (another way of putting the first definition). It's how much other people unwillingly bear the cost of your decisions. This definition of power implies non-conservation -- theoretically, there could be a powerless world where everyone's actions are internalized, as well as a world where everyone's actions are likely to negatively affect others (where there are weak or non-existent property rights, for example). We anarcho-capitalists are fighting for the former.
That agrees with my conception of power as being cost-free action.