Power to Life, Power to Death — Power in Complex Systems

Lately there has been much talk about power. From social justice warriors to company middle managers, power is and always has been much deliberated. Usually the big question is “who has power?” But the bigger question is “who should have power?”

But what is power? Do we all have a good understanding of what power is? Do we all agree on what it means? What I would like to propose is that, by looking at complex systems, there are two distinct types of power. One type leads to new qualities (life) while the other leads a system to destruction and chaos (death).

Definition of Power

Before we can look at the two different types of power, we first have to define what power means. What can get confusing is that there are some that use the words “authority” and “control” interchangeably with the word “power.” Especially those who talk about “leadership.” These words do not mean the same thing. Authority and control are about force, power is about change.

Let’s define what power is within the context of a complex system:

Power is the ability of a domain within a complex system to exert change in another domain.

Power is all about making change. Think about everyday examples of power within a system. Your car, for instance, is powerful because it can get up to speed quicker than most other cars. The power of the car is encapsulated within an accelerator pedal. Pressing down on the pedal in one car is more/less powerful than pressing the pedal on another. The pedal is a domain in a complex system. It is powerful due to the amount of change in motion it influences in the complex system of the car.

The term “domain” represent the different interdependent parts within a complex system. The car has many domains within its system: the pedal, engine, drivetrain and wheels are a few. A domain has a responsibility. The engine’s responsibility is to convert fuel to energy, the drivetrain’s responsibility is to transfer the energy to the wheels, and the wheel’s responsibility is to convert that energy into motion. A more powerful car can convert more fuel within the engine into quicker motion through the wheels.

More abstractly, power is about the ability to bring about significant changes with a complex system. With that in mind, there are 2 different ways in which change can be produced within a system.

Influencing Change Through Responsibilities

The first type of power is influencing change through responsibilities. True power cannot exist without domains fully executing their responsibilities within a system. Domain responsibilities are fundamental to power. This, I believe, is why personal responsibility has always been an important part of western culture. Western culture would not have produced the most advanced social systems in the world without personal responsibility.

Proper power in a complex system is energy or data that influences change within the responsibilities of other domains within the system.

With our example of the car, the large amount of energy that is produced by the engine flows through the drivetrain system to the wheels. The wheels produced the desired change (motion) by using the energy from the engine that flowed through the drivetrain. If any of the different domains within the car do not fulfill their responsibility, the car will not move. No amount of energy produced by the engine matters if the wheels can’t turn.

Domains are not powerful by themselves. Take the engine out of the car and turn it on. Converting fuel to energy without a drivetrain and wheels to convert that energy to motion makes the engine worthless. The true power comes from chaining the multiple domains within the system together to create new qualities. This is why a federal government is meaningless without the state, county and local governments. Or your super “powerful” database is worthless without an API and graphical interface in your computer system.

Similarly, all domains must be relatively robust with regard to the amount of energy/data that flows through the system. If a car has a diesel engine, but the drivetrain and wheels of a moped, one would not consider the car “powerful”. They would consider the engine “powerful”, but not the car. The drivetrain would simply crumble from the large amounts of energy produced by the diesel engine. A system is only as powerful as its weakest link. This is a central concept of both Lean (production line system development philosophy) and Agile (software system development philosophy).

This type of power can be seen in all forms of complex systems:

• Data through a computer system
• Energy through a biological system
• Value through an economic system
• Order through a government system

The power in all of these systems is the ability to exert change through the system. The power has to be exerted through domain responsibilities. If it’s not, then responsibilities start to accumulate within a domain. This leads us to the other type of power.

Usurping Responsibilities

The other form of power is the use of usurping responsibilities to produce change. Each domain contains a responsibility, but if some domains are not properly fulfilling their responsibilities, then there is a natural reaction of other domains to usurp the responsibilities of the failing domains.

A sociological example is totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is about centralization of control. In order to have centralization, complexity is usurped into a single domain. An example of this is communism in the former Soviet Union.

The centralization of the Soviet economy under Stalin was central to the communists scheme of economic and political viability. State ownership of industries eliminated private control, while the party forced collectivization of agriculture bringing farms under state authority. Central planning committees, such as Gosplan, coordinated economic activities, and the government controlled prices, labor, and resource allocation. Investment decisions were directed by the state toward specific industries outlined in the plans.

While centralization led to rapid industrialization, the usurping of responsibilities from the lower domains in the economy into the central government resulted in inefficiencies, resource misallocation, and a lack of adaptability, contributing to long-term economic challenges for the Soviet Union.

I have found this to be true within technology: large, multi-purpose frameworks provide quick/rapid development at first, only to quickly crumble over time. Several of my past jobs were to rebuild a centralized architected system into a distributed hierarchical system.

Another form of usurping responsibilities within the real world is micromanagement. The excessive control over employees may provide results within the short term, but it hurts employee and company morale over time. If employees feel that they are not contributing to the mission or vision of the company, the employee will be stressed until they are either provided a responsibility or leave the company. This is due to our inherit tribal nature which is a source of purpose and motivation. You can read more about tribalism, purpose and motivation by reading my article The Two Laws Of Tribalism: Biological Laws for Purpose and Motivation.

There doesn’t seem to be any examples of usurping responsibilities at a biological level that isn’t just a form of redundancy. The closest is compensation mechanisms, but it only involves adjacent organs or tissues assuming additional functions.

Back to our car example: let’s imagine giving the engine the responsibilities of the drivetrain and wheels. The engine would have to not only produce energy from fuels, but also convert that energy into motion. Just imagine your car being propelled forward by the engine rolling on the ground. I don’t think that would be a comfortable ride.

Am I Usurping or Am I Flowing?

At this point you’re probably asking yourself: am I usurping power or am I letting power flow through my responsibilities? Yoda sums it up brilliantly: “you know when you’re at peace.” In my experience in the software industry, when everybody is properly fulfilling their responsibilities, people tend to describe their experience as being “part of a family”.

Go on LinkedIn and you will see all the posts about how your fellow workers are not “Family”, but I think they’re missing the point. Qualitatively, what I believe people mean when they say they’re part of a “Family” is what Christians call the “fruits of the Holy Spirit.” Charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, and self-control. When everybody is focusing on their responsibility, and together everyone’s responsibilities produce qualities, then all the fruits of the Holy Spirit are present.

When there is usurping of power with in a system, that is usually manifested through anxiety. Particularly, anxiety about responsibilities. Do you fear losing any of your responsibilities? Do you feel the need to take over somebody else’s responsibilities? I find the first question/thought produces the most anxiety. We are a tribal species and we must feel that we are contributing to the tribe. If any domain is no longer contributing to the overall mission, it’s usually cut out of the system. If you feel you’re no longer contributing to the companies mission, you’ll most likely get fired. Nobody wants that.

However, being apart of teams or companies where power is flowing through them is truly a wonderful experience. I’ve been apart of 2 companies that I would say I was part of a “Family”. But, the irony is that to get people into a proper state, one might actually have to usurp some responsibilities.

Parenting

Viewed from the above context, one would think that power through usurping responsibilities should be considered an absolute evil. However, there is another form of power by usurping responsibilities that is incredibly important: parenting. Parents wield power by temporarily usurping responsibilities from their children, a vital aspect in early life. This dynamic is essential for the protection and guidance of children who, lacking the mental capacity for independent functioning within complex systems, require parental authority. The act of usurping responsibilities is not seen as an absolute evil in this case but rather as a necessary and constructive aspect of parenting, ensuring the well-being and development of children in their early stages of life.

The job of parenting is to protect the children while also teaching them to become good members of society. From a complex system perspective: the child is considered a proper member when they are balanced with being a consumer and a provider. The only way for the parent to do this is to usurp the child’s responsibilities in our social complex system until they are ready to be proper contributors.

Apprenticeship is also a scheme for usurping responsibilities until the apprentice is ready to be a balanced consumer/provider. Not only is this good, but it’s vital for the proper passing of skills in any industry. I’m concerned that this practice is slowly dying in most industries, including my own (software).

Overview

Power is relative change within a complex system. There are two types of power: Influencing change through responsibilities and forcing change through the usurping of responsibilities. The first leads to new qualities while the other leads to the destruction of the system. Understanding that you are a complex system, and that you are a part of many complex systems will help you focus on what’s important: fulfilling your responsibilities and feeling the power that will flow through you within the system that you are a part of.

Originally published at http://longloft.com on December 27, 2023.