🌲 Power

Power Building

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.” - Frederick Douglass

While power primarily forms within the elite class, power can develop in the Grassroots with sufficient community organizing. This is described in the anarchist/mutual aid term, Solidarity, not charity.

Jane F. McAlevey, in her book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power, categorizes attempts at change into three distinct categories: advocacy, mobilization, and organization.

“Liberals and most progressives don’t do a full power-structure analysis because, consciously or not, they accept the kind of elite theory of power that Mills popularized” (McAlevey 2016, 4).

Relates most prominently to the thought that power in America is controlled and maintained by the elite class. Elite theory continues to be prevalent at every level of the American democracy. It’s sometimes hard to call it that, considering how power is not even close to egalitarian.

“Advocacy fails to use the only concrete advantage ordinary people have over elites: large numbers” (McAlevey 2016, 9).

Power Mapping

Advocacy and mobilization typically doesn’t pull power from the hands of elites and if they do, it’s typically only on a temporary basis. Frequently, many deals/concessions are also made behind the scenes as well.

This is why the practice of power mapping has become so important. Even tracking where power lies is present in the classic phrase, “Follow the money.”

Power and Performative Activism

How does power coincide with Performative activism? If we decide to trace performative movements back to power, the definition of what is a meaningful social movement quickly becomes muddy.

There is no silver bullet solution to building power. But there is a clear distinction between knowing that ain’t right and making it so.

Further Reading

• Domhoff, G. William. 1967. Who Rules America?. Prentice-Hall.
• McAlevey, Jane. 2016. No Shortcuts. Oxford University Press.
• Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. Oxford University Press.
• Smucker, Jonathan. 2017. Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals. Chico: AK Press.

This line appears after every note.