Power grows as both the power-holder and the subjected gain freedom

Evidence

The power of the power-holder is greater if he can choose from more and more diverse types of decisions for power-like assertions and it is greater if he can do this in opposition to a partner who himself has more and more diverse alternatives. Power increases with freedom on both sides, and, for example, in any given society, in proportion to the alternatives that society creates. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 598

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Counterintuitive inversion of the common view that power and freedom are opposing — connects to Stevens’s servitude where his own freedom of alternatives is minimal, shrinking rather than enlarging Darlington’s power.

Related

• Power grows with freedom and alternatives on both sides (similarity 0.93)
• Power grows only as the freedom of the subjected party also grows. (similarity 0.90)
• Power can be increased only when its own overthrow is institutionalized (similarity 0.82)
• Power increases only through limitations that co-constitute counter-power (similarity 0.82)
• Power arises only at the moment positive rewards are threatened with withdrawal (similarity 0.82)
• Even the most powerful now are objects without autonomy (similarity 0.82)
• Power-holders must restrain themselves or power’s potential is squandered (similarity 0.81)
• Absolute power stays marginal when no choice-situations exist (similarity 0.80)
• Power processes grow social resources and detach action from natural motives (similarity 0.80)
• Power differs from coercion in that coercion reduces choices to zero. (similarity 0.80)
• The production and reduction of uncertainty is the absolute precondition of power. (similarity 0.78)
• Power and money media amplify each other’s binary disjunctions (similarity 0.78)