Nature of Power

[mahall]

[quoteuser=“Matticus Rex”]
Power is the ability to do something.

Authority is the legitimacy in using power.

Aggression is the use of power without the corresponding authority.

I have the power to aggress against my neighbor. I only have the authority to aggress in response to aggression.

I have the power of my own faculties wherever I go. I only have the authority to use them when on my own property or when (explicitly or implicitly) granted that authority by the owner of property I am on. If that authority is completely withheld from me, I have no right to be on that property. Authority is only justly alienable when given up by an action that one has the power, but not the authority, to do, and only in proportion to that aggression.
[/quote]

Thanks for the input, I liked the breakdown you gave. Maybe ‘power’ can be broken up into two generalizations; might power and market power.

What of the common saying is ‘knowledge is power’?

Here is Mises on might: http://mises.org/humanaction/chap9sec3.asp

If we hypostatize or anthropomorphize the notion of ideology, we may say that ideologies have might over men. Might is the faculty or power of directing actions. As a rule one says only of a man or of groups of men that they are mighty. Then the definition of might is: might is the power to direct other people’s actions. He who is mighty, owes his might to an ideology. Only ideologies can convey to a man the power to influence other people’s choices and conduct. One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating. Might is thus not a physical and tangible thing, but a moral and spiritual phenomenon. A king’s might rests upon the recognition of the monarchical ideology on the part of his subjects.

He who uses his might to run the state, i.e., the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, rules. Rule is the exercise of might in [p. 189] the political body. Rule is always based upon might, i.e., the power to direct other people’s actions.