Power differs from coercion in that coercion reduces choices to zero.

Evidence

Power must therefore be distinguished from coercion (Zwang) to do something concrete and specified. The possible choices of the person being coerced are reduced to zero. In borderline cases coercion resorts to the use of physical violence and thereby to the substitution of one’s own action for unattainable action from others. Power loses its function of bridging double contingency the closer it comes to coercion. Coercion means the surrender of the advantages of symbolic generalization and of steering the partner’s selectivity. The person exercising coercion must himself take over the burden of selection and decision to the same degree as coercion is being exercised – for many cases we can even say that coercion has to be exercised, where there is a lack of power. The reduction of complexity is not distributed but is transferred to the person using coercion. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 596

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharp definitional boundary between power (which bridges double contingency) and coercion (which destroys it).
• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s thesis: Darlington’s influence over Stevens operates as power, not coercion, because Stevens retains genuine alternatives. — connects to: Mass consumer choice over offered products is a token of powerlessness, not power — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 226