THE PARADOXES OF POWER
POWER: the capacity of people or groups to control or influence the actions of others, whether those others wish to cooperate or not.
Sociologists ask why power is exercised, who is benefited and who is harmed
PARADOX: something that seems or appears to contradict or conflict with common sense
but which contains a truth (More haste, less speed)
<...> 2. The nature of power is subtle.
3. We can see this by looking at when power works and when it fails to work.
4. When someone has power it is not because s/he went against the grain or established norms of society. It is because s/he successfully manipulated the existing social organization and the opportunities that were available <...>
MONEY:
*money doesn't equal power, doesn't translate directly since it merely symbolizes
power
*you can pay people, but that doesn't mean they will do what you want
* one strategy would be to pay over short periods and pay hourly or according to
productivity
*still doesn't mean that just b/c they are present, they are working hard
*incentive pay only controls how fast people work, not how well.
*even when the most miserly mangerial practices are used, their power is limited by
the fact that a boss must pay a living wage b/c a worker would rather go on
strike than work for nothing.
*in order to determine how much workers can get done and how much they need to
live, then managers can go observe them and calculate from there
--but what do you suppose workers do when managers do this?
ALLL IN ALL, MONEY ISN'T VERY EFFECTIVE
FORCE
but empirical evidence shows that it is not very effective--esp in the long run.
*prisoners in Nazi and Russian labor camps could not get their workers to perform
as productively as their 'free' labor counterparts, much to the dismay of the
Mercedes Benz factories that used concentration camp labor, not even under the
threat of death.
Why? When someone coerces you, the first thing ppl do is get upset and fight back
if they can. They escape if possible. Compliance is the last resort.
So, it takes a lot of energy and resources to force people to work.
Even so, workers resist: apathy, tuning out, going through the motions,
not caring, not paying attention
And so the boss can't beat the workers to a pulp or even kill them--not all
of them anyway.
First, you wouldn't have any workers
Second, you wouldn't have much energy left to do anything else!
This is why, oddly enough, violence works best the less it is used.
What all of this comes down to is the fact that both rewards (money) and coercion (violent force) are relatively weak forms of power and control.
If you want to get others to do something, then you're better off getting them to want to do it and to find the reasons for doing it legitimate. How do we do this?
SOLIDARITY
a third way is to get people to feel that the work is part of their very own identity, that they are contributing to something they believe in or some group that they belong to. but how?
*indoctrination into an organization and full commitment to that organization
* language of very nearly religious indoctrination seems odd outside religion proper,
but is it really?
*No, b/c the higher status professions use very highly ritualized organizations
in order to indoctrinate their practitioners into being the best lawyers,
doctors, professors possible through identification and solidarity with others
in their profession.
--lengthy rites of passage known as professional school/grad school
--lots of ritual activities like conferences, meetings, journal readings,
article writing, attendance at lectures, debating.
--as such, these professions have very little external control over their
behavior
*in occupations with less status, rituals of solidarity are still employed:
--rituals in which people take public responsibility for acting on the part
of the organization
--explaining the organization to outsiders; being entrusted w/ responsibility
--this creates loyalty and makes monetary and coercive controls much less
important
c. social rituals in which people take social responsibility have proven to be highly effective
d. why aren't they used as often?
--because rituals time consuming
--because they involve the sharing of power; it requires giving up some power
None of these three forms of power works without serious limitations
THE NON-OBVIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF POWER:
Power is most effective when it cannot be seen.
--the most obvious form of power, violence, is the least effective
--monetary power is more apparent than real.
--ritual power through solidarity works better b/c it is covert, though b/c
of this also difficult to consciously manipulate.
The most effective strategy is to influence what people take for granted
Garfinkel's Breaching Experiments
--the beauty of his experiments was that they showed just how much ppl took for
granted
--revealed the tacit assumptions that are required for social interaction to occur
--revealed, too, that people get angry when they are pressed to explain what they
usually take for granted
--the sociological significance is not the anger but the fact that people try
to avoid these situations
CONCLUSION: social arrangements work b/c ppl avoid questioning it most of the
time, because ppl maintain a certain level of focus, rather than reaching
deeper below the surface. There are questions and disagreements, but
these aren't generally about the point of the interaction in the first
place.
Power is most effectively wielded when one controls the level of focus and thus the questions people ask about their social interactions and their social situations
THE POWER OF UNCERTAINTY:
Q: Exactly who, then, emerges as relatively powerful?
A: Usually those who manage to control or manipulate some area of uncertainty
adapted from Randall Collins, Money, Force, Solidarity in Non-Obvious sociology