This is a response to "Power Distilled" by Watermelon on Substack.
I agree with the article pretty much in its entirety. The following are some thoughts about how I'd like to see ideas further drawn out or improved.
The article doesn't seem to clearly articulate "where power comes from" ... sure, it can arrive from "elsewhere than Rome" and institutions are the guardrails to keep people from power; the article also mentions that the powerful are able to use their words to affect material reality. But again, where does it come from? The "right to rule" is proved, and this proved-ness is power? The Mandate of Heaven.
Could power be described as "legitimacy in the eyes of the masses?" As such, institutions would exist to mediate "legitimacy", but how do they do this?
The section entitled "Nothing Ever Happens" is excellent. No notes. I will articulate it in my own words: The mediation by liberal-democratic institutions absorbs and dilutes power in such a way that the outcry of the people never produces real change. To destroy the institutions and bring about a better populism would be to move the directives of the state closer to the yearnings of the common people. My DOGE could build Socialism essay jokingly hints at this cybernetic feedback loop. A liberal democracy is too bogged down by class interests. A true Republic necessitates a communistic economic system whereby the material reality of the base of society is the primary focus of the state.
Of course my "DOGE could build socialism" essay can be easily refuted with the following excerpt from Watermelon's conclusion: "Non-Populist regimes can imitate this power of Communism by promising the people reform or providing them some benefit if they will support the political system’s goals, but the nature of rule by an exploiting class makes this temporary and fade quickly after whatever crisis prompted the state to tap into the power of the people. The American elites almost immediately set about destroying the New Deal of Depression era America after the Second World War for example"
"A normal state represents a special body of armed men, but the Communist state is the people’s body of armed men." ... I know "special body" is quoted directly from Lenin, but I'm not sure this sentence is as clear as it could be. I'd say something like "A normal state is a body of armed men which represents the propertied class." It's not obvious to me what "special" means here. Perhaps just "above society" rather than amongst it. I believe that's what Lenin meant.
The final paragraph of the conclusion is excellent, but the final sentence leaves me wanting. "There is only the leveraging of power - the administration of things - rather than the mediation of power." — it's not clear to me what the relation between "power" and "things" are, I think this could've been cool to articulate so this sentence really pops.
Intuitively I would say that "power" is the power to control "things" ... the capitalist class derives their power from their control of things, the Communist state derives its power from its control of things, and the democratization of power into the hands of the people would allow the withering away of the state, given that the state is an apparatus of domination of one class (things-owners, things-managers) by another. For all to become things-managers (through a communist state) would be that all would have power such that there is no special body of armed men. Perhaps civilian-owned tactical nukes truly is the path to liberty. (lol I'm joking)
Communism is Free Energy and Nothing Else. Energy to administer things.
Overall I loved the article and I am excited to see what further dialogues this stirs up.