Logic – based on its own basic and fundamental rules – leads us to an extra-rational conclusion and outcome, which is that everyone and everything is influenced and shaped by structure one way or another, and in turn, structure happens to be unconscious. It follows that when we examine structure, there are only minute or subtle differences between individuals. Everyone is essentially the same within a certain structure. Especially within the American political and social structure. Conformity within a structure, but especially in the American structure, results from the fact that coercion and obedience exist within all structures, to borrow from Mills. But there is also more to just brute coercion when it comes to keeping a structure together and in turn establishing one’s authority and power over a structure.
Rather than brute coercion and force, it is credibility and legitimacy which establishes authority within any given structure. Power cannot be wielded for power’s sake. Power has to be combined with law and freedom. There are also positions and roles within a structure. How are these positions and roles determined? To borrow from Mills: “The power position of institutions and individuals typically depends upon factors of class, status, and occupation, often in intricate interrelation.”
The goal is political power in any given structure. And the aim or the purpose of political power is for individuals and groups to “influence or to determine the policies and activities of the state.” And how is political power accumulated? To borrow from Mills: “The accumulation of political power by any stratum is generally dependent upon some four factors: will and purpose, objective conditions or opportunities, the state of organization, and the political skill of leaders.”
Yet, all of the four aforementioned factors in terms of how political power is accumulated are in turn determined by structure. And when the structure changes as a result of globalization or technology or war or demographics, power ends up getting concentrated more and more into the center of power, wherever that center of power may happen to be. In turn, prestige is also acquired through association with that center of power. The center of power then derives its prestige from its power to make decisions which will then impact the course of world history. The question is whether the decisions of a certain center of power such as Washington or New York actually make an impact on the course of world history. There are certain individuals who can impact the course of world history within a certain center of power, but not all of them, as Mills argued. To borrow from Mills: “I should contend that ‘men are free to make history,’ but that some men are indeed much freer than others.”
Moreover, the more freely an individual acts within a certain center of power, the more access he or she will have “to the means of decision and of power by which history can now be made.” There are individuals who make history on one hand, and then there are those who “tend increasingly to become the utensils of history-makers as well as the mere objects of history.” In sum, power is highly centralized. And power will grow even more centralized over the course of time, to the point where power is perhaps concentrated into the hands of just one individual.
Adam A. Azim 