What is power? Is it simply the capacity to exert unjust force? The ability to impress one’s will upon the flesh or belongings of another? Surely not. Most anyone can wield unjust force.
Anyone could walk out onto the street right now and exert their will on somebody weaker: say, pushing over an old lady or stealing candy from a baby. And the toughest, or most heavily-armed guy in town can strong-arm just about any other single person. But perpetrating isolated incidents of aggression is not power. The “reign” of the rogue rampager is extremely short-lived. It only lasts until the community recognizes him as the menace to society that he is and neutralizes him.
No, power isn’t simply about the exertion of unjust force. It is about what happens next, after the exertion. Does the perp generally get away with, or not? Systematically getting away with it—or impunity—is where power truly lies. And that is what makes agents of the state different from any other bully. State agents can aggress with reliable impunity because a critical mass of the state’s victims consider the aggression of state agents to be exceptional and legitimate. That is power.
And that is why invisibility is such an apt analogue for state power. The public’s moral vision has a complete blind spot when it comes to the state. It detects acts of theft, enslavement, and murder whenever they are perpetrated by anyone else, but it is blind to the criminality involved whenever the same exact acts are committed by agents of the state. It is blind to state theft, instead seeing “taxation,” “fees,” and “citations.” It is blind to state enslavement, instead seeing “mandates,” “prohibitions,” and “regulations.” And it is blind to state murder, instead seeing “war in pursuit of the national interest.”
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