Power exists in two forms. There is power over oneself, and there is power over others. To have power over oneself means that one has the physical capacity to decide for oneself: which direction to go, what to spend time on, how to behave. This is a fundamental ability that a person tacitly desires, even if it has not been explicitly articulated. On the other hand, power over others implies coercing another to do what they otherwise would not have done, by means of physical force or by threats of consequences. The subjugated person is either unable to resist physically, as when the oppressor overpowers them with superior physical strength, or they are threatened with consequences that they wish to avoid more than they wish to avoid what the oppressor demands.
To desire something is to wish it were so; to want it is to freely choose it, having weighed the alternatives, even when every alternative is bad. This distinction matters because we often choose not to do what we desire, while we in fact never choose to do what we do not want. A person may desire to behave in a certain way, but elect to do something else because of pressure from another party under threat. For example, a mugger demands your wallet at gunpoint. You strongly desire to keep your belongings, but you choose (you want) to hand them over because you prefer losing them over facing the consequence of being shot. Every choice we consciously make is what we want, even under coercion. It is simply a question of whether or not we can abide by the perceived consequences.
The good news is that we are all free in one sense: no one is ever inherently required to do the bidding of anyone else. We are always able to do as we desire. We often do not, because we fear the consequences, but the choice remains ours. What almost no one has is freedom in the other sense: freedom from coercion. Save for a completely isolated hermit, everyone lives under some pressure. As humans, indeed as all mammals, we learn during childhood to accept these constraints. We are born incapable of surviving on our own, and only gradually learn to fend for ourselves. Consequently, we come to defer to authority through a gradual progression. At first, we are physically forced into obedience, and then slowly, through repetition, we begin to grasp the consequences. Ultimately, one may develop the capacity to evaluate those consequences, choosing between what we can tolerate and what we cannot.
But coercion is not the only way. We are also able to adjust the behavior of others by non-coercive means. We can attempt to persuade each other of the benefits of different choices. This amounts to modifying the mental models of others so they understand what the consequences really are. It is often the case that we choose one action over another only because it is the best option we are aware of. A different action may have different consequences that we would happily live with instead, if only we had known about them. Opening the eyes of someone else thus provides a means to channel the behavior of others without coercion.
Wielding power contaminates a relationship, transforming it from mutuality to superiority. The subject moves from equal to lesser, being subjugated, and feels a shift in the relation, as the superior asserts dominance. Furthermore, exerting power over others produces a visceral reward in the person exercising it, independent of outcomes. This is the mechanism by which even benevolent wielders become corrupted: the reward arrives for the exertion of control itself, not for the benefit produced. Over time, the reward-seeking behavior shapes the wielder toward more control-seeking, because the brain’s reward system does not distinguish between control that helps and control that does not. The corrupting effect on the wielder is neurochemical before it is moral.
Corruption is spoilage, the contamination of the self. It has no moral justification that does not presuppose a divine entity (see my position on the supernatural in Nominalist Determinism IV: The Supernatural). Beyond the might of the sword there exists no moral rationale for subjugating others. Punishment, which a society may need to survive, is an exercise of that sword. It is perhaps necessary to certain ends, but it is not righteous, and it corrupts those who wield it all the same. Corruption follows regardless. Arguments are made that it is natural to use power, or that without power we are unable to accomplish the things that most of us desire (most modern conveniences). As implied above, exerting power is indeed natural, but that can act neither as an endorsement nor a repudiation. That something is natural has no bearing on whether it is good or bad, moral or corrupt (see my position on morality in Nominalist Determinism II: From Particles to Morality).
The State
As for collective accomplishments, history shows that humans have not been organized into the systems — teams, organizations, institutions, armies — that enable construction of the stuff that we have all around us today, like houses, cars, computers, modern agriculture, education, etc., without some form of coercion. One might object that people submit to the control of others (bosses, leaders, kings) by choice, in order to earn money or to escape dire consequences (the sword), but as noted above, what we want in those cases differs from what we desire: we act to escape consequences imposed by those in power. Payment in the form of money does not alter this picture either. Money is merely a means of making people do what they otherwise wouldn’t, as when they perform labor for the rich, or when they hand over their own bread. Money is not only a ledger with which we keep track of the interchange of goods and labor, it is under the control of someone: the king or the state, who creates it and dispenses it as they see fit, requiring the people to pay it back in the form of taxes. Taxation is what empowers the king or the state to control the people, to coerce them into the labor and warfare they would otherwise likely refuse. Abolishing money would therefore work to eliminate the basis for large-scale exploitation, by which the people in power enrich themselves at the expense of others, rather than through their own labor.
Another common objection is that people are free to leave if they are unhappy with the conditions under which they labor. This is true, in the sense of being free that I have discussed above, free to choose among the available options. But those different options are manipulated by others who seek to coerce you, and in doing so they are removing options that you could otherwise have chosen. You are therefore free to leave, but not necessarily to prosper and flourish. Rather, throughout history the options have often been narrowed down to submission or death. During feudalism, it was simply punishable to leave. During capitalism it led to destitution, as it was not possible to find independent means of sustenance. Presently, it is practically impossible to exit a society and live on one’s own, because there are almost no livable places left to go that are not the domain of those in power: the state, its leaders, the capitalists.
Volunteering time and labor can be an act of desire, to help others and to build collective structures. However, even work done without coercion stands on coerced infrastructure. Cooperatives such as Mondragon, and benign organizations like them, are admirable, but they operate within the state and the market, and so tacitly accept a system that oppresses others elsewhere: in the mines, the factories, and the supply chains they depend on. One suspects that even their cleaners would rather be home with their children. Any organized work, such as firefighting or social work, requires production that ultimately rests on the coercion of someone else. No technology we have is free from the labor of those whose only choice is tedious or hard work, at minimum wage or worse, that they dread every day. Not everyone in a large organization can be a volunteer, because someone must be coerced to do the work that no one desires.
Leadership is the problem. There can be no leadership without authority to compel, as it by definition entails subjugating others to the leader’s will. Leaders make decisions without consulting all the subjects that are expected to conform or face punishment. Therefore, to avoid the corruption of power, leaders, and thus the state, must be abolished. This is admittedly radical, and most people’s objection is understandable. If we abolish the state, the very societal structures that we have built cannot stand, and the social welfare system will cease to exist. I treasure the benefits of these structures too, but they rely on the subjugation of other people. Imperialism and colonialism produce these benefits at the expense of others, and most people are, alas, unaware of it.
Let me be clear that I do wish that a just, free, and complex society were possible, in which we could collectively produce the goods that we all want. Unfortunately, on analysis, I believe it is not. Can you imagine in detail a system (the Machine) that organizes the production of airplanes, electronics, and mined ore without oppression? Without subjecting people to the will of those in power, whether by force under threat of pain, or by making a desirable life impossible without the money the leaders control? Who desires to go into the mines? Everything that we own, apart from the simple things that we create from scratch with our own hands, is created through the toil of others who would rather choose differently if they could. How many destroyed lives is your phone worth? How many dead children is your comfortable and safe life worth? The fact that our leaders make those hard decisions to oppress and kill innocent people far away from where we happen to live does not absolve us. Would you personally — by your own hand — dominate another person, perhaps a child, in order to achieve your material desires? Outsourcing oppression is the same thing as oppression. There are certainly many who have no problem with it: history is one long list of celebrated founders and empire-builders, the titans we revere, all of whom abused and exploited fellow human beings. The arrangement continues today unabated and largely unquestioned; the few who question it are seen as troublemakers.
But there is a price to pay for ending exploitation and oppression: a world without rulers is a world with fewer comforts. The question is whether we are willing to pay it, or whether we prefer that others pay instead.
By nature, we humans are violent beings who seek to control not just ourselves, but also others, as that furthers the selfish goals we naturally have, and therein lies the core of our problem. Our natural disposition towards seeking power over others is based on our evolved greed and fear. Greed for the things that we need to survive, and fear of the others that may seek to destroy us. If people simply no longer desired control over others, then our problem would evaporate. Should the ability to alter this nature arise, for example by increasing everyone’s empathy toward our fellow human beings (and animals), then the greed and fear that underlie the desire for power may diminish enough to make a stateless society stable. Who knows what we might be capable of in the future?
Some defend exploitation as natural selection at work: the winners prosper, the weak are weeded out, and we all grow stronger. This is false. Selection requires that losers leave fewer descendants, and in our society they do not reliably do so. They simply have worse lives. Nothing is strengthened, people merely suffer, and since this environment is one we have chosen, there is no end to it.
War, that ultimate fiasco of human existence, is not a consequence solely of human nature with its penchant for violence. Individual violence, while abhorrent, does not result in organized warfare, and egalitarian societies have had methods to prevent it, chiefly by not having the infrastructure and power relations that war requires. Whatever benefits the state provides pale beside the horrors of war.
For now, if we are to build something together without falling into the trap of coercion, participation must be optional: every individual must have the opportunity not to participate without punishment. To ensure that people are truly free to leave, exit rights and a chance to prosper must be upheld. No collective deserves to be called a success if some of its members suffer for it. I propose a list of changes that could move us in this direction in Anarcho-communalism: Towards human flourishing and planetary equilibrium.
In the world that we have, I understand leadership and force as necessary to change society. But I can imagine another way. Myself, I hold little power: I am not a boss, and my only wealth is modest savings, which still make me complicit in the system. Aside from stating my opinions, I seek to dominate no one. If we all chose to boycott society in this manner, we could gradually get to where I think we need to go.
Exploitation and oppression should be ended, and since they are the tools of leaders, the state must go. A stateless, anarchist society comes with a loss of many comforts, but no one would be made to bear the cost of another’s, and the unbearable condition of power over others would be eliminated. If this be brought about by force, itself an act of corruption, it can be excused only as necessary, never righteous. And even then, only as a means we absolutely must be ready to relinquish. A stronger legacy would come from persuasion: opening eyes, until enough of us see what our comforts cost and then choose to give them up.
Bjørn Østman, Svendborg, October 2026
