The Game Is the Game

There are two ways to begin a story about power. In the first, a single person is handed full power for life, and no one can take it from him; only he can choose to return it to the people. In the second, a single person also sits on top, but with zero power, because the power has been taken from him, and he must work to win it back. The first looks like a tale of restraint, the second like a tale of ambition. Yet they are the glass half full and the glass half empty: two descriptions of the same reality, seen from opposite ends.

That reality is that power never truly belongs to the person who holds it. It rests on the people who go along with it. Étienne de La Boétie saw this from the side of the powerful when he argued that a tyrant falls the moment people simply stop obeying. Derek Sivers saw it from the side of the powerless: a leader rises the moment people start following. Hannah Arendt joined the two, holding that power exists only while people act together and lasts only as long as they stay together.

This is why the starting point does not change the game. The person granted power for life cannot be formally removed, yet he can still lose that power in every way that matters if he stops respecting the many it rests on. A title that no one obeys is only a title. The person who sits on top with zero power gains it in exactly the same way, by respecting others until they choose to stand with him. Mencius said the way to win the realm is to win the hearts of its people, and Laozi compared the true ruler to the sea, which commands every river only because it lies below them.

What does differ is how easy the rule is to see. The person on top with zero power sees it clearly, because he needs others and knows it. The person on top with full power for life is tempted to forget it, since obedience starts to feel natural rather than granted, and a grant with no end date starts to feel like ownership. If he remembers that the power was lent, he behaves as a steward. If he comes to believe it is his, he behaves as an owner, and owners are the ones who end up losing it.

None of this means power can float free. It always gathers somewhere; Robert Michels called this the iron law of oligarchy, and even a system built to spread power needs someone to enforce the spreading. The real questions are who holds it, how, and for what. Sometimes the wisest choice is to give full power, for life, to a single person who stands where you stand, rather than let it fall to someone who does not. It is a serious bet, because once given, everything depends on whether that person uses it for the people or over them.

Giving power to one person does not contradict the principle that power belongs to no single person. It can prove it, if he uses that power to return it to the people. Returning power is not the same as walking away from it. Often the one who seeks ownership over the people is still there, waiting, and returning power to them means standing against him, which itself takes power. A holder who simply laid his power down would only leave it lying for the would-be owner to pick up. So the test of the steward is not whether he lets go, but whom his power serves: whether he uses it to keep the people from being owned, or to own them himself.

Now take the opposite starting point: a single person still sits at the top, but with exactly zero power. He keeps the title, the seat and the name, yet the power itself has been taken by those who seek ownership over the people. His position commands nothing, because no one obeys a seat. He cannot order his way back; he can only win the power again by respecting others until they choose to stand with him once more. And when he has won it, he faces the very same test as the one who began with full power. Regaining power is not the goal in itself. Its purpose is to stop those who seized it and return it to the people, not to make himself the owner they tried to be. This is the bottom line: all players are in the same game, whether they start on top with full power or on top with zero power. Power comes from others, and it is kept, won and honoured by respecting them.