An idea is worthless without power to compel its adoption

Evidence

Ultimately, he had learned through his experience with John Purroy Mitchel, it all came down to a question of power. An idea was no good without power behind it, power to make people adopt it, power to reward them when they did, power to crush them when they didn’t. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 614

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A rare piece of genuine life-advice about how change actually gets made, distilled from a decade of Moses’ frustration.
• XREF: Connect to the theme of institutions and power from the law-merchant and trade-governance readings: power to reward and punish underpins cooperation. — connects to: Formal freedom to refuse work is meaningless without resources to survive refusal — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 306; Rules without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 143; Poverty cannot be simulated because it fundamentally means lacking power — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 233 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Formal freedom to refuse work is meaningless without resources to survive refusal #corroborates (0.95) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 306
• Rules without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. #exemplifies (0.90) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 143
• Free expression is meaningless without the social power to be heard #exemplifies (0.90) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 355
• Good intentions fail without social forms to express them #corroborates (0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 763
• Poverty cannot be simulated because it fundamentally means lacking power #corroborates (0.80) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 233
• Advisory participation that yields no policy power reads as inauthentic cooptation #exemplifies (0.80) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 708
• Self-determination cannot precede the abolition of exploitation #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 227
• The physical infrastructure of big tech is worthless without users’ free content #exemplifies (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 333