sci-fi author, beatmaker

Tag: MLK

How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part III

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and civilly disobedient bus rider Rosa Parks.

This post is a continuation of How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part II, in which I started to chip away at the non-trivial problem of how disempowered communities can regain power.

Certainly this qualifies as An Extremely Difficult Problem … in this case I’m taking the empirical approach.  What has worked in the past?  We can look to the specifics of Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution, MLK’s civil rights movement strategies, Nelson Mandela’s leadership in the anti-apartheid movement, how Cesar Chavez organized U.S. farm workers, and other examples of communities regaining power without the use of violence or other coercive tactics.  Are there generalities that apply to all of these cases?

How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part II

One has led a successful non-violent revolution, the other is still trying.

In How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part I, I wrote about how individuals can become more powerful.  In this post I’ll write about how communities can become more powerful (including how communities can escape from the tyrannical, coercive control of oppressors).

A different kind of power grid.

When I write “accumulating power,” I’m referring to non-coercive, non-zero-sum power (which I explained in detail in my earlier post The Four Types of Power).  Non-coercive power allows us to do more; it increases our scope of action.  Coercive power, are on the other hand, is derived from controlling others, either through violence, the threat of violence, or withholding resources necessary for survival (like food or shelter).  I’m not interested in this kind of power — I don’t want to control others.  I would prefer to live in a world in which everyone who is capable of free choice can exercise it.

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