power
Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion
Editorial synthesis · provisional
Definition
Power is the capacity to produce effects, whose ethical significance depends on how it is used, distributed, made durable and checked. It can enable participation as well as restrict it; neither power nor constraint is already domination. When its effects become rules, infrastructures or institutions, power helps shape the possibilities available to others.
Explanation
AB distinguishes power from moral goodness and badness before asking what its exercise makes possible. Its durable forms matter because a rule, score or treaty can organize later action after the initiating deed has ended. Judging power therefore requires attention to the world it leaves in place.
PB assigns unequal answerability to those who build, deploy and govern technical arrangements. Participation in a process does not give every participant the same knowledge or control. RB3 locates domination specifically in systematic subordination, rather than in every distribution of influence or every imposed limit.
RB1 discusses causal powers arising from organization and constraint; RB2 describes institutions distributing the power to endure and participate. These supply related causal and institutional treatments without making physical efficacy an ethical warrant or identifying power with domination.
Scope and attribution
Retain the inherited sense-split recommendation, with this proposed assessment limited to capacity for effects and its ethical evaluation.
AB — The Actual Book
Capacity for effects, evaluated through use, distribution, durability and checks.
Occurrence locators: 16, 62, 63, 72, 110, 148, 153, 154, 164, 165, 174, 176, 182, 183, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 197, 205, 208, 209; Epigraph: 54; Glossary: 225, 226; Notes: 248; Appendix: 278, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286.
PB — The Possible Book
Technical participation carries unequal capacities and responsibilities.
Occurrence locators: 37, 63, 64, 65, 98, 105, 106, 107, 141, 156; Reproduced AI exchange: 16; Reproduced historical essay: 189.
RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real
Organization and constraints explain causal powers; this is broader causal background.
Occurrence locators: 10, 25, 73, 105, 106, 112, 161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 169, 269, 277, 278, 279, 283.
RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being
Institutions distribute the power to endure and participate in world-making.
Occurrence locators: 33, 151, 154, 159, 161, 175, 273, 291, 292.
RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations
Power and constraint become domination only under systematic subordination.
Occurrence locators: 13, 14, 15, 47, 146, 147, 152, 162, 178, 184, 188, 189, 191, 192, 194, 196, 197, 219, 224, 228, 230, 246, 255, 259, 260, 271, 275, 276, 277, 281, 283, 284, 286, 287, 289, 311, 312, 316, 317, 319, 328, 342; Reproduced AI exchange: 400; Living in a World of Relations: 345.
Background used in the editorial explanation
Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.