Power, Authority & Legitimacy

[Edi]

This column was in the Metro paper today, and I thought it might be a good one to post here. The issue is certainly relevant in light of current events. I would like to see what people think of this. However, informed opinions, not just flames or out-of-hand dismissals as this as more pinko-communist-hippie-liberal bullshit. I want good, reasonable discussion, not flamewars. We've a surplus of those already, and I personally think this issue is important and merits attendant consideration.

Mind you, this is a translation of mine from the original Finnish text, so some of the nuances didn't quite carry over and that's also why some of the sentences might seem a little strange, though overall I think I did a very good job of it.

Translation note: The Finnish word 'valta', which was used throughout the original column (titled Valta ja auktoriteetti), generally incorporates the meanings of both power and authority, while 'auktoriteetti' (literally authority) also incorporates some of the meaning of the word 'legitimacy', and I had to work around that. That's why the text might (perhaps, I don't know) throw you for a loop in a couple of places, but it should not. At least I hope so.

Edi

The article:

**********************

By Jukka Relander, Historian

Power, Authority and Legitimacy

It has become a habit to compare the evils of Nazism and Communism by counting bodies. Stalin leads the contest by 20 million murdered people, Hitler lags far behind. [There is one problem with this comparison: With the same logic we can demonstrate that the Bush dynasty heads a regime bloodier than Saddam Hussein’s. The previous Gulf War included, Americans have killed more than 100,000 Iraqis, while Saddam doesn’t even come close despite the indiscriminate slaughter of Kurds.

Compared to the Bushes Saddam is just an intern.]*

[*Edi's comment: I need to get a new bullshitometer, the previous one wasn't just overloaded, it was atomized. Saddam has throughout his 30-year reign (he was de facto head of state long before being so officially) killed some 1.2 million or thereabouts Iraqis of the various ethnicities, as well as starting the war with Iran that resulted in at least 1 million Iranian dead. Both Bush administrations put together don't get anywhere near the same league. Even though I have little good to say of the current US administration, I'm not going to just sit down and see bullshit like this presented as if it were fact. Consequently I have emailed the author and pointed out the mistake. I'm not providing the email address here because I don't want him to get flamed for me just translating and posting this stuff without actually having been given permission.
In any case, the above error is really immaterial to the real issue of the column, the actual relevant stuff starts below.]

The Comparison between Stalin and Hitler is more or less appropriate and believable, whereas the comparison between the White House and Baghdad raises counterarguments: “Wait a minute, it’s not quite, it’s a totally different thing, you can’t put it that way…” No, you can’t.
Because it is not about the level of evil or an absolute bodycount, but the legitimacy of power. The real or imagined horror of any regime is revealed in the instant when that regime’s power loses its legitimacy.
This is what happened in Ceausescu’s Romania in 1989. The smiling leader of a socialist republic received a parade of cheering crowds, made a bombastic gesture typical of him and suddenly the crowd began to laugh and jeer. In that instant Socialist Romania collapsed and soon we were counting bodies just like happened after Stalin and Hitler.
People were aware of the Nazi concentration camps both in Germany and abroad, yet their “discovery” was a huge shock when the war ended. Individual people knew very well what was happening in Germany, but they did not know it collectively. To be more precise: They did not know that others knew that the horrors of the death camps were indeed true.
When different sorts of corruption and rot come to light and are “discovered”, it is specifically discovered that others know too. Of course everyone has privately known that Stalin was a dictator who ruled by terror and that Hitler was a murderer.

The legitimacy of power is based mostly on the fact that people perceive that everyone else thinks the power legitimate. The power of every single dictator rests on this foundation.
This has also been the basis of the world order headed by America. Of course everyone knows that a vicious game is being played behind the flowery words and phrases, that the superpowers act selfishly and so on. We live in a time when these perceptions are dangerously close to breaking into the collective consciousness: In other words, the moment when Bush speaks in his usual bombastic way but the world following the speech on TV starts laughing and jeering. It has in fact happened already.

There is a problem with this issue. It is of course a good thing that the world that opposes war perceives the truth from behind the curtain which has been hung in front of it. I.e. that the US is primarily pursuing its own national interest and freedom and that democracy only enter the picture when they coincide with the current US interest. Everyone knows this. The difference between now and the past is that now we know that others know too. Good. The truth is brought out. However, the collapse of the American-led world order is not entirely without problems.
Every civil war ever fought has been preceded by a collapse of legitimate authority – in Finland in 1918, in Yugoslavia in 1991, in the whole world in 2003.
The world no longer has a unifying center of power that possesses legitimate authority. The alternatives are the universal realization of freedom and liberty, or a global civil war.
The latter alternative seems frighteningly probable.

[Edi]

I'm fairly annoyed right now because this tangent is, as stated twice already, a red herring to the actual subject of the thread, and it was already stated in the article itself that the bodycount numbers don't matter in terms of the actual subject. That's what makes me incensed, it's basically been a thread hijack from reply #1. I hope the mods will just split this to a separate thread, then we can discuss the numbers issue and occasionally flame the shit out of each other to our heart's content, maybe starting from your first reply and put a link to this thread in there (or the title). That way we can have both discussions on their own.

Some of it is also my anti-Russian bias showing, have to admit that. I tend to try and avoid it, but I don't always succeed. I first got angry in the Press Freedom thread and it carried over here.

Edi

[K. A. Pital]

Edi
Hope the mods split this, too.

I first got angry in the Press Freedom thread and it carried over here.

What the point of getting angry? Try give points, I'm not a solid wall. I admitted even in the media thread most of media is controlled somehow, and I can insult people too but that's no good.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's nice, Edi, but the presumption is that there forms of authority which are illegitimate, and yet can still exercise power. It seems pretty clear that the world only effectually works through legitimacy of power - Authority derived from power grants all legitimacy. Saddam Hussein is the legitimate ruler of Iraq - the UN supports that, even, by recognizing his government and seating his ambassador to it - and he runs a classical Oriental Despotism with a few propaganda trappings.

So, power is always going to be the determinative - But power is not necessarily used in singular ways. Though between States diplomacy has taken the same forms without much change throughout history, internally is where the difference exists. Iraq is a state where domestic power is concentrated into one person - Saddam. Democracies are States where domestic power is distributed among various numbers of people. They are both power organizations, but on different structures. They both use power the same way at the level of foreign policy, but differ vastly in internal organization.

In Rumania, Ceausescu lost power to the people when they had the chance and will to pit mob force against the state's capacity for violence. The state was incapable - it blinked, or had rotted to the point where it could not - resist the power of the mob, and the government was overthrown. Legitimacy shifted from Ceausescu to the People as a contest of Force. If the people don't think the power is legitimate, they must have sufficient power of their own to change the power structure (either as a theoretical potential which is them manifested through the political process, or through revolution).

The author's supposition is wrong in that the people of the world cannot collapse the legitimacy of American Power. They cannot do so because the legitimacy of American Power is in its mere exercise, and no vast worldwide popular movement will ever arise to "destroy America", or somesuch wild Chomskyite fantasy (not implying either yourself or the author intended it as such - Merely such would be required, and is fantastical).

Power is always legitimate. It is made legitimate merely in existing, and in being used - Because it is power. It cannot be anything else, and can only be illegitimate when overthrown, crushed, and defeated. This is the nature of the world, of humanity and of all things. Force against force, striving, one or the other being overthrown, or meeting in uneasy equilibrium.

Saddam Hussein is very much a legitimate ruler - A legitimate Oriental Despot, a King of Kings of Babylon and Ashur, lord of the cities of Sumer. But we are now trying his power, and when it is overthrown, it will be gone, and that is that. Then we will raise up a new organization in its place - one which will balance in equilibrium the forces of people and the government - and thus offer a far better life for the average citizen of Iraq, where they have a say in their destiny (and, indeed, in their own government's use of power in the realm of foreign policy). That is the improvement being made, and it is based on the one legitimacy that counts.

[Edi]

It's nice, Edi, but the presumption is that there forms of authority which are illegitimate, and yet can still exercise power. It seems pretty clear that the world only effectually works through legitimacy of power - Authority derived from power grants all legitimacy. Saddam Hussein is the legitimate ruler of Iraq - the UN supports that, even, by recognizing his government and seating his ambassador to it - and he runs a classical Oriental Despotism with a few propaganda trappings.

Arrgh! I see now why that translator's note was necessary. Legitimacy of authority is perhaps the term I should have used, and authority is (usually at least) derived from power (of some kind, not necessarily just brute force).

So, power is always going to be the determinative - But power is not necessarily used in singular ways. Though between States diplomacy has taken the same forms without much change throughout history, internally is where the difference exists. Iraq is a state where domestic power is concentrated into one person - Saddam. Democracies are States where domestic power is distributed among various numbers of people. They are both power organizations, but on different structures. They both use power the same way at the level of foreign policy, but differ vastly in internal organization.

Somehow I think this might be a good idea to start selling winter gear to the denizens of hell, as there is nothing here that I really disagree with you about.

In Rumania, Ceausescu lost power to the people when they had the chance and will to pit mob force against the state's capacity for violence. The state was incapable - it blinked, or had rotted to the point where it could not - resist the power of the mob, and the government was overthrown. Legitimacy shifted from Ceausescu to the People as a contest of Force. If the people don't think the power is legitimate, they must have sufficient power of their own to change the power structure (either as a theoretical potential which is them manifested through the political process, or through revolution).

Even scarier is that I agree with you here as well... Though it naturally follows from the precept of authority being legitimate only if being perceived to be so as stated in that opinion column (ignoring questions of relative power here).

The author's supposition is wrong in that the people of the world cannot collapse the legitimacy of American Power. They cannot do so because the legitimacy of American Power is in its mere exercise, and no vast worldwide popular movement will ever arise to "destroy America", or somesuch wild Chomskyite fantasy (not implying either yourself or the author intended it as such - Merely such would be required, and is fantastical).

Here we start to disagree. The people of the world might not be able to prevent American power from being exercised, and cannot collapse its legitimacy in American eyes, but as far as the rest of the world's eyes, it can be done. And the results of that will be that there will be less cooperation and more resistance to American aims, and in order to get (reluctant) backing for its causes, America must either threaten, bribe or outright force other countries to do its will, which will just feed the cycle of perception of illegitimacy. We can't outright topple American power, nor is there necessarily a wish to do so, but we can make it increasingly difficult to exercise it with impunity. Of course, these are not instantaneous processes, but ones that take time, and they are definitely not military, but political and economic processes. If we look at things from a perspective of decades or centuries, any sudden popular "world-revolution" against America in the sense you mean (that won't happen in the first place) isn't even necessary. American power will be just as dead from a million pinpricks than from a single massive blow as long as the collective damages are equal.

Power is always legitimate. It is made legitimate merely in existing, and in being used - Because it is power. It cannot be anything else, and can only be illegitimate when overthrown, crushed, and defeated. This is the nature of the world, of humanity and of all things. Force against force, striving, one or the other being overthrown, or meeting in uneasy equilibrium.

That position ignores the possibilities of cooperation for mutual gain and synergies because it assumes everything to be a zero-sum game. Militarily, perhaps; politically, probably; economically, no. And because all three are what makes up the structure of power, power relationships are not automatically zero-sum games unless forced to be (by excessive greed, failure to solve problems otherwise or just plain irrationality).

Saddam Hussein is very much a legitimate ruler - A legitimate Oriental Despot, a King of Kings of Babylon and Ashur, lord of the cities of Sumer. But we are now trying his power, and when it is overthrown, it will be gone, and that is that. Then we will raise up a new organization in its place - one which will balance in equilibrium the forces of people and the government - and thus offer a far better life for the average citizen of Iraq, where they have a say in their destiny (and, indeed, in their own government's use of power in the realm of foreign policy). That is the improvement being made, and it is based on the one legitimacy that counts.

You are putting Saddam's legitimacy in question, but by breaking with the UN in order to do so, you have also put into question the legitimacy of the world order that US built after WW2 and where it was one of the pre-eminent powers (and is the most powerful one still) and considered a genuine leader. Unarguably, the Iraqis will be better off once Saddam will be removed from power. I do not disagree. Saddam Hussein never did have legitimacy in my eyes because of what he has done.

However, at what cost to itself is the US doing this? This has cost you dearly in terms of perception of legitimacy outside the US, and consequently you will have a hard time getting other nations to go along in the future, and thus your power will directly have diminished! Given how Geroge W. Bush managed all of this in just two and a half years, his accomplishment in this regard is bloody impressive, and just as lamentable.

Edi