The Phenomenology of Power

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” ~ Kurt Cobain

The strong desire to influence others manifests itself differently in people depending largely on the level of economic power, social influence, and knowledge at their disposal. Low-income women will seek to muster what resources they can to raise their children in a nurturing environment. Middle-income men will coach youth athletic teams providing mentoring and teaching discipline to young boys. Upper-income people fund think-tanks and foundations to end world hunger, fight disease and save the environment. Most of us do what is within our power to help each other.

It’s all good as long as these efforts are voluntary and the recipients of this good will wish to receive it. However, when coercion and deception are involved the best of intentions become wicked. When frustration and desperation put people at their wits end, they may cause harm to those they try to help. Dysfunctional childhoods may result in empathic failures and perverse predatory behavior. These human frailties can affect all classes of people. The destruction they cause is magnified by the wealth, power, and influence of the frustrated, the desperate, and the perverted.

The single mother living in the ghetto that locks her child in a closet while she is at work to keep him off the streets for his own protection is creating a monster. The little league coach who seeks trusting relationships with young boys so that he can later molest them deserves a special place in hell. The philanthropist who intervenes into the lives of “the disadvantaged” so that they can subjugate individual initiative to collective manipulation is evil incarnate. Appearances can be deceiving. Actions are revealing. Force and deception cannot be used for good purposes.

The poor mother who locks her child away and the middle-class coach who molests his players are rightfully seen as abusers no matter how safe the former is and how disciplined the latter is. It is easy to see how these actions have destroyed the individual spirit of their victims. Yet when someone points to the elite, who undermine entire cultures with smothering cures for their “disadvantages”, they are derided as “conspiracy theorists”. Of course, those with enough wealth, power, and influence who lock their children into institutions and/or sexually abuse them can get away with that too. Some even get away with murder; but I digress. The abuse I wish to point too is much more subtle and difficult to comprehend.

Upper class pretentious desires evolve into self-styled burdens that require their leadership. People with the power, influence and knowledge to affect social change always have an agenda; perhaps well-meaning, but also self-serving (whether financially or egotistically). Institutional mechanisms are then used to affect these changes. The elite must allow broad participation for these mechanisms to be sustainable. A façade of cooperation must be spread over the agenda so that the appearance of grass-roots initiative is given to the collective actions taken.

Elite power relationships justify these agendas that intervene into the lives and cultures of the “disadvantaged” with a mixture of greed and ego. The cooperative mechanisms created by the elite seek to develop institutional mechanisms. The natural order spontaneously created in society gives those with wealth and knowledge power and influence in proportion to their respect-worthy actions. When the respect-worthiness of their actions and plans do not meet the expectations of these influential leaders, then coercion and/or deception follows. “The poor fellows deserve it,” is the self-satisfying justification for the use of force and fraud to accomplish these agendas, “It’s for your own good.”

Techniques for achieving agendas of the powerful have grown from experts defining solutions and implementing policies to what is called Appreciation-Influence-Control (AIC). An appendix in the World Bank Participation Sourcebook spells out these techniques very well. You have to check out these links to really appreciate how the select few use their influence to establish control over the “disadvantaged”. The manipulation of “disadvantaged” by the “advantaged” is a fact available in plain sight and thus is just a conspiracy; and not a “conspiracy theory”. But how many people delve into the particulars of the World Bank website?

It’s a simple technique really based upon the fact that team spirit engages people’s emotions at deeper levels. So called “stakeholders” are allowed to participate in creating the organization that will eventually control them. This is done by tapping into local politicians, do-gooders and businessmen who want to create problem-solving organizations. These locals typically wish to retain local control (by themselves) and are wary of outsiders; like, say, World Bank types. An excerpt from their playbook explains it well:

“Appreciation Influence Control” (AIC) is both a philosophy and a model for action. The philosophy, anchored by the principle that power relationships are central to the process of organizing, was translated into a model for organizing development work by William E. Smith in the late 1970s and early 1980s. AIC is a workshopbased technique that encourages stakeholders to consider social, political, and cultural factors along with technical and economic aspects that influence a given project or policy. AIC (a) helps workshop participants identify a common purpose, (b) encourages participants to recognize the range of stakeholders relevant to that purpose, and (c) creates an enabling forum for stakeholders to pursue that purpose collaboratively. Activities focus on building appreciation through listening, influence through dialogue, and control through action. … In other words, AIC facilitates recognition of “the big picture.” This process has been implemented in a variety of sectors and settings, including local, regional, and national.

It goes on to explain that “investments must be redirected” and “institutional reforms and new policy directions” are needed. Now when the internationalist fascist minded corporate elite want to profit from malinvestments funded by international bankers to be paid back by taxpayers while masquerading as do-gooders for said taxpayers, they do not just bribe local elected officeholders and dictators. This obsolete “central power relationship” has been found to be unsustainable and big projects take years to build. The AIC technique solves this problem and has a better chance of being sustainable in the long run.

For instance, if a large power generator-constructing corporation wants to build a billion dollar dam in a third world country, there are three ways to do it. The free-market way would be to identify where the demand can justify the supply of this power at a profit and make the investment into building the damn based on future returns from satisfied customers. But where no such demand is present (supposedly where the free-market has “failed” to provide “needed infrastructure”) then taxpayers must foot the bill. In the old days, the corporate executives would just bribe the politicians at the top to get the project funded and perhaps even actually built. Now they start at the bottom to make it look like “the people” are demanding that it get built.

The above link provides several case studies of how the AIC technique has been successfully used for many projects around the world, large and small. So instead of showing how this is used by international fascists in third world countries (now called emerging markets) I want to use a case study closer to home. The insidious manipulation of this “workshop based technique that encourages stakeholders to consider social, political, and cultural factors along with technical and economic aspects that influence a given project or policy” is more subtle when it’s used here at home.

Big landholders in Florida (and elsewhere) are finding it increasingly difficult to get local politicians to change zoning regulations that allow development of their rural properties and also to use taxpayer monies to build the needed infrastructure. Zoning regulations are an egregious violation of property rights that is a hidden form of uncompensated eminent domain, yet 99% of the population thinks its “okay” due to the triumph of aesthetic chauvinisms and NIMBY ethics. Using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the rich getting richer is unmitigated fascism, but sold on the song of “creating jobs”. In the past, the answer to these development obstacles was to buy-off the local politicians usually through campaign contributions. However, as the novo communist environmentalists have grown in political power, a more modern approach is required.

The national trendy name for this approach is Smart Growth. Since the local politicians have been slow and inconsistent responding to the desires of the big landholders, environmentalists and developers a new supra-regional political structure is being created to go over their heads. In Central Florida the Smart Growth advocates have started a “grassroots” organization called My Region. My Region’s signature project “How Shall We Grow?” is a good case study of gathering local movers and shakers together to forge their golden chains while cui bono should be obvious. If you check out the websites at myregion.org, howshallwegrow.org and smartgrowth.org you will notice that individual property rights are a foreign concept. And people believe communism was a thing of the past.

First, coordinating mechanisms are “sponsored” to create “grassroots” bona fides that are chaired by the most powerful but must include a “diverse” membership. Then institutional mechanisms are organized by these “stakeholders” with favored politicians “putting some teeth” into the regulatory powers of the newly created institutional mechanism. Finally, bureaucratic weenies run the show. The only plans that count are those of the central planning command and control management and staff persons. The plans of the property owner must conform to their dictates. Some collectivists won’t be happy until all property use planning is cleared through a U. N. Planning and Zoning Commission.

All the while, a steady stream of gloom and doom press releases, symposiums, events and meetings with concerned speakers take place. Collectivists collect to pat each other on the back while painting individualism, liberty and property rights as just anachronistic hogwash. The planet is dying because people are poisoning Mother Earth with their very existence! The horror! Men must be chained or we shall all die. Survival of the species requires draconian methods to change how people think and act! OMG, I’m so scared, we must do something! Only central planners can save us!

“It is clear,” they stress, “that now is the time when we must combine our considerable intellect and sense of fairness and equity to shape our collective future.” — 1000 Friends of Florida, News Journal 1/29/2007

“It’s always a worry that these things are happening faster than we think,” he said. “Too many of the old-timers just took pictures of the old buildings but didn’t do anything to save them.” — News-Press 1/16/2007

“Planning was supposed to protect Florida resources, landscape and quality of life from sprawl since at least 1985, but local governments had granted the construction industry more than 100,000 exemptions from their plans by 2000 and state agencies challenged only four”, said author and documentary filmmaker Bill Belleville, telling a community forum in Fort Myers, “The growth plans are diluted. They have no teeth to them.”

“All six, county growth management director Merle Bishop, builders association executive director Scott Coulombe, consultant and planning commission member Augie Fragala, farm bureau executive director Heather Nedley, Sierra Club activist and planning commission member John Ryan, and Florida Bipartisan Civic Affairs Group local chapter co-founder Al Whittle, agreed that the county must seek public consensus on growth and density, establish precise calculation of the true economic impact of development decisions, and refine policy on construction in rural areas.”

The different options offered generally tout the wisdom of high-density, mixed-use growth. With no sense of irony, the pictures used to provide a model for what is supposedly needed in the future are of old downtown areas in Savannah, Georgia, St. Augustine, and Winter Park, Florida. All of these developments occurred before zoning laws restricting the use of the land and size of the buildings. You can bet that these bureaucrats never even considered the option that removing all zoning regulations and allowing people to really own their property and develop it to the dictates of the market would result in the desired outcome; and in an efficient, freedom-friendly way.

The market, due to changing demographics, has recently demanded mixed-use, high-density developments and the existing zoning regulations have had to be changed to allow them. Now the Johnny-Come-Lately urban planner PhDs think the answer to the problems they themselves created to begin with is to make everybody live in these type developments that they formerly shunned. Brilliant! Of course, these people would not have jobs if not for the institutional mechanisms used to force people to do what they don’t want to do. Utopia, to these planners, is when everybody follows their plan. To think that individuals could somehow have a legitimate plan for their own property is absurd to them.

In the end, a few big landholders will get giant planned communities with lots of conservation areas, preserved wetlands, wildlife corridors, and high-priced, high-density homes to reap heavy profits from. The taxpayers will pay the bill for extending roads, sewer, and water lines, building schools, fire stations and other infrastructure for the mega-developments. However, the small to medium sized landholders will be located outside of the designated urban services areas and denied access to these “public works” as well as the ability to decide how to use the property they supposedly own. Big developers, big banks, political charlatans, and a gang of bureaucrats will profit while the little guy gets screwed again.

The erosion of personal liberty is ongoing today due to the increasing regulation of people and property by central planners. The concept of property rights is at the heart of the matter. Undermining property rights is the most serious, yet subtle form of tyranny we face today. Smart Growth is just one example of the elite profiting from the desire of the masses to find a better life. Don’t get fooled again, the emperor has no clothes.

Central planning as the means to achieving economic utopia through the institutional mechanism of communistic political structures has been proven to be a lie. This lie killed millions of people and impoverished billions more before it collapsed upon itself. Central planning as the means to achieving environmental utopia through the institutional mechanism of fascist political structures will be proven to be a lie as well. How many millions of people must be killed and billions impoverished before it too finally collapses upon itself? Can you say Kyoto Treaty?

It is revealing that the MSM crucifies the poor and middle-class individual mercilessly when they act immoral, even when they have good intentions or perhaps provide marginal benefits to their victims; yet, the MSM will cheer loud and proud for the tyranny of elite central planners as they undermine the cornerstone of liberty: property rights. The destruction of our society by the powerful is more perverse than when done by the powerless, as the results are more widespread. Control is the elite end while appreciation and influence are their means. That is the phenomenology of power: subtle yet complete subjugation. Do not be regaled by ignorant scribes and emotional zealots touting the benefits of golden chains.

Mark Davis is a guest columnist for Novakeo.com
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