this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Wealth (whether it be "money", resources, or anything else) and power are one and the same. Two sides of the same coin. Either one provides access to the other. I don't think of them as separate or distinct at all... which is why it's problematic for the aristocratic hoarders when plebes start to pool either and work collectively.
Oh, no, they're not exactly the same. They wouldn't come into conflict if they were the same.
As another example, unions. Employees often see issues early on; perhaps a machine needing maintenance. A union can bring this up to management and put the pressure on to get it done. The business will save money in the long run with machines in proper maintenance.
If it doesn't get done, best case scenario is that it fails and the whole production line is shot until it's fixed. Worst case, it fails more catastrophically and damages other equipment, or injures workers.
Despite plenty of stories like this, companies will fight unionization efforts every time. Why? Because money doesn't always align with power.
Maybe something is getting lost in translation, but none of the things you mentioned seem to have anything to do with the point I'm making... so your ending claim that "money doesn't always align with power" doesn't seem related to anything I said or the scenario you posed...?
"Wealth and power are exactly the same". This is the claim I'm disputing. If there are places where money and power are in conflict, then they can't be the same. Your analysis of a situation will be have holes in it if this is not considered.
If you’d care to dive deeper I’d like to be challenged on this; but your previous example of “maintaining things can avoid unnecessary costs later” (as I understand it) doesn’t have anything to do with “money and power can be in conflict”.
Shortsightedness driven by greed does not, in any way, negate money equaling power.
Then let me attack it from a different direction: can you have power in a society that does not have money?
Within that isolated society? Sure.
If your goal was to argue semantics then I don't know why I'm entertaining this. Yes, in an imaginary society that is 1) somehow not influenced by modern society and 2) somehow also avoids currency - power dynamics will obviously take different shapes.
Do you realize how meaningless that example is?
I'm working outword to find a path in.
If a society can have power without money, then can the two overlap perfectly in any society?
To use a more concrete example, how do unions ever have power in our society? They tend not to have money, or at least very little in proportion to the business owners.