Power processes grow social resources and detach action from natural motives

Evidence

Mobilization, chain formation, generalization, and the thematic specification of power processes increase socially available resources by making possible combinations of actions and increments in selectivity, which, so to say, would not arise of their own accord. In this way it is possible to achieve a certain independence from motive bases made accessible from the natural lifeworld. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 634

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘independence from motive bases of the natural lifeworld’ is precisely what enables Stevens’s devotion to the butler role over his personal moral sense. — connects to: Technological and social progress produces psychological regression and instinctual fixation.; Rational productivity and social control are welded together in new forms of manipulation — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 551; Under postindustrial capitalism, increased freedom and abundance produce more sophisticated social control — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 216 (+2 more)