Sources
Power may be held through:
- Delegated authority (for example in the democratic process)
- Social class (material wealth can equal power)
- Resource currency (material items such as money, property, food)
- Personal or group charisma
- Ascribed power (acting on perceived or assumed abilities, whether these bear testing or not)
- Expertise (ability, skills) (the power of medicine to bring about health; another famous example would be "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" – Desiderius Erasmus)
- Persuasion (direct, indirect, or subliminal)
- Knowledge (granted or withheld, shared or kept secret)
- Celebrity
- Force (law) (violence, military might, coercion).
- Moral persuasion (including religion)
- Operation of group dynamics (such as public relations)
- Social influence of tradition (compare ascribed power)
- In relationships: domination/submissiveness
JK Galbraith summarizes the types of power as being "Condign" (based on force), "Compensatory" (through the use of various resources) or "Conditioned" (the result of persuasion), and their sources as "Personality" (individuals), "Property" (their material resources) and "Organizational" (whoever sits at the top of an organisational power structure). (Galbraith, An Anatomy of Power)
Erica Grier, a professor of Psychology at the University of Harvard, categorized power into the following possible sub-headings:
- Aggressive (forceful)
- Manipulative (persuasion)
Read more about this topic: Power (social And Political)
Famous quotes containing the word sources:
“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from imploding—and this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“On board ship there are many sources of joy of which the land knows nothing. You may flirt and dance at sixty; and if you are awkward in the turn of a valse, you may put it down to the motion of the ship. You need wear no gloves, and may drink your soda-and-brandy without being ashamed of it.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)