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What is power?
How does it become centralized or decentralized?
These questions are at the heart of understanding how governments work.
Humankind has barely scratched the surface of what it takes to provide for democracy, equality, and reduced social risk.
History has taught us that centralizing power in one group member creates maximum power inequality and typically results in abuse of power.
Whether done consciously or unconsciously, that group member will inevitably make decisions that serve personal rather than public interests.
It's human nature.
In The Four Powers, Hanania provides a fast-paced historical assessment of centralized power.
From World War I to crypto, Hanania explains the emerging trend toward technodemocracy: a decentralized system of governance whereby power-centralized institutions (such as churches, banks, political parties, campaign donors, Amazon, and the CIA) become obsolete.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
From the author of Architecture of a Technodemocracy (2018), an Amazon bestseller for both U.S. politics and sociology, comes this eye-opening analysis of the human power structure.
Jason M. Hanania is an attorney, an engineer, and a former U.S. government employee.
INTRODUCTION
An Equation for Power
In 2016 I set out to write the book Architecture of a Technodemocracy.
It documents a system for ending political party systems using technology and democracy.
Before authoring that book, I searched far and wide for an institutional definition of democracy but found none.
If you asked ten social scientists for a simple definition of democracy, you would get ten different responses.
As an engineer, I found this frustrating.
I wanted a more technical understanding of democracy, a mathematical framework to build on.
The same way physical science provides equations for motion (such as force equals mass times acceleration, or F = ma), I wanted a social science equation for democracy.
After struggling with this problem for months, I concluded that democracy is the decentralization of governing power.
Subsequently, I needed to define governing power (GPower).
The end result was a simple equation:
GPower = C + O + D + A
C = communication power
O = option power
D = decision power
A = accountability power
The four powers, CODA, apply to any group, be it planet, nation, state, town, church, business, team, or family.
Defining the Four Powers
A government is not a white marble building filled with politicians, administrators, businessmen, religious leaders, or other group leaders. It is a collection of social mechanisms (i.e., people processes).
The four powers drive those social mechanisms.
For any group, effective governance requires that members engage in the processes of communicating, weighing options, making decisions, and accounting for those decisions.
The four powers equation allows us to apply calculus to governance.
At a high level, the minimum and the maximum show us there are two clear ends on the government spectrum: democratic and nondemocratic.
In a nondemocratic government, these four powers are typically centralized in one group member or less than 1% of group members (the 1%).
In a democratic government, the four powers are decentralized to up to 100% of group members (the 100%).
The concepts of centralizing and decentralizing power are fundamental to understanding government.
Through the decentralization of power, democracy offers equality.
Every group member is vested with equal power...
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