Secured power as possibility lets systems gain time and order actions sequentially

Evidence

On the level of interactional processes, decisions can be made over an extended period, if power as a possibility is secured on the basis of possible actions which one would like to avoid being realized. A social system which has this possibility available can, thereby, organize complexity so as to gain time. Something which cannot occur simultaneously becomes possible in an ordered sequence. This is a way of extending a system’s repertoire of actions which can be integrated and yet related to one another. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 631

Categorization

• XREF: Directly dramatizes the reader’s thesis: system trust reduces complexity by organizing action sequences, exactly the deferential ordering Stevens continually performs.