Abstract

The dissertation is an inquiry into the possibility of a universal increase in power; in other words, a critical examination of the "zero-sum" conception of power whereby one's gain is assumed to equal another's loss. The argument is that a universal increase in power is possible in principle and at least approachable in practice. It is possible in principle if one takes as the primary meaning of power the self-related capacity to realize some intention rather than describing power merely as control of others . But it could be logically coherent yet practically impossible. "Scarcity," "Conflict," and "Desire" represent practical constraints which must be addressed: the challenge is to show that a universal increase in power is possible, or at least approachable, even where power remains scarce, even where conflict continues to exist, even where power is desired apart from its ends. ;The purpose of the inquiry is to defend the plausibility of the ideal of universal freedom or universal liberation. If one's gain in power equals another's loss, then liberation for one can only mean oppression for another. Only on the basis of a nonzero-sum description of power is the ideal of universal liberation coherent. ;The work consists of analytical argument and commentary on texts: Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, and several recent writers on power. At the center of the argument is a reconstructed "argument" between Marx and Nietzsche as to the nature of power. Nietzsche represents the hypothesis that power is always oppressive since the goods we most desire are those which come at another's expense. Marx's envisaged communism represents the hypothesis that power can be encouraged universally without becoming oppressive. ;Other issues treated in the work include: whether power relations are causal and unidirectional, or interactive and multidirectional; the difference between instrumental and noninstrumental descriptions of power; the difference between power as a cooperative product and power as an individual attribute; the question of what constitutes approach to the ideal of a universal increase; the question of whether a universal increase in specifically political power is possible