Society substitutes symbolic hierarchies for exact power measurement

Evidence

According to this, not only scientific and methodological problems are indicated. Further, the result of this complication for society itself is that it must develop substitutes for an exact comparison of power constellations and that these substitutes themselves become a factor in power. Firstly, hierarchies which postulate an asymmetrical distribution of power serve as substitutes. It is assumed that a superior has more power than an inferior (although in bureaucratic organizations the opposite may be normal). Another substitute is the history of the system; cases of past successes in obtaining desired outcomes in conflict situations are recalled, normalized, and generalized as expectations. This function, as a basis for comparison, goes together with the symbolic explosiveness of concerns about status and single events, which are used in a way that brings present power constellations too much to the foreground. Thirdly, there are important possibilities for substitution in semi-contractual arrangements, whereby a too-powerful partner comes to terms with those who might withdraw or be disloyal. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 599

Categorization

• XREF: Hierarchies-as-substitutes for power measurement connects to Giddens’s ‘faceless commitments’ — the butler’s office hierarchy in Ishiguro is precisely such a substitutive structure.
• DEFINE: Identifies hierarchies, institutional history, and semi-contractual arrangements as the three functional substitutes for direct power measurement.