Communicating about power cannot replace communicating through power.

Evidence

What appears to happen is that influence related to status and functions in organization gains visibility and becomes ensnared in a web of communications and meta-communications dealing with questions of power. One can foresee that this will increase the power of veto which is anyway typical of organizations. Taking this route, there is less prospect here than anywhere else of altering society through interactions which use the communication medium of power. The weaknesses of power in the context of societal evolution are today obvious. They are due to the complexity of the system of world society. Ultimately these are reflected in – but do not let themselves be eliminated by – the attempt to replace communication through power with communication about power. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 777

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense, potentially paradigm-shifting claim: that meta-communication about power (participation, co-determination) cannot substitute for actual power communication — the very gesture of making power discussable signals its weakness, not its health.
• QUESTION: Does this suggest that institutionalized critique of power (like the open debate in Darlington’s household) inevitably masks power’s real operation rather than reform it? Worth chasing against the Ishiguro reading.