Local Politics Play an Important Role in World building and Real Life Systems

When people think of power, it is always interpreted as something a powerful person has. This person is usually the King, the President of a country, or a business CEO.

These persons are powerful.

What about the Knight, the advisor to the President or the supervisor of a department? Some would say these people are not powerful.

I disagree.

They are quite powerful and actually the most important people within a social system. How is that possible when they are below the upper class?

Simple, each leader has a representative group of people that put them into that position.

That leader can be removed by that representative group of people. So that group gains leverage over that leader because of this.

If you suggest that capitalism means owners of businesses are immune to this, because the product or service offered puts them in charge, one counterargument.

That business hires people.

If those people decide to not work or create that product or the owner is so horrible to their employees, that only the lesser skilled or desperate would ever consider working for them, that weakens their position of power.

That business will degrade and fall away in time, weakening the owner's financial power and their overall leverage.

Let's think of systemic racism as a perfect example of this. Who enforces that system? The powerful racists groups?

No.

They only promote the philosophy. Guess who actually enforces racism or any form of bigotry the most?

Regular people.

You and me.

A police officer.

The member of a student teachers association.

A government employee.

Here is how it occurs: The police officer racially profiles any car driven by a black person as a definate target for a search.

The member of the student's association can influence how school resources are allocated and rally for seemingly ‘good’ policies to be implemented.

That government employee can affect how local people are served within their range of responsibility.

This is why the people around the King are more important than that King.

This is this video on Rules for Rulers by CGP Grey (which has been renamed to Why Do All Governments Work The Same Way?) details it from the top level calling those people around the King, keys to power.

They are essentially the representatives that have given license to that King through either votes or violence to rule over their group and the other representatives and their groups. Fun fact if you think of it from the framework of representatives, the representatives are leaders of groups. Those groups have individuals. The individuals in that group gave that representative license to lead them, carry forth their complaints and lobby for their desires. Those groups of individuals would want those representative leaders to ensure their desires and grievances are met. That group would want resources allocated to them. Even if that might cut into the resources allocated to other groups? You're starting to see how bigotry might seem like innocent ‘wants’ at first and then becomes a vicious and systemic fight against other groups and their representatives to make sure they continue getting their piece of the pie within a country.

This is why power starts at the individual and what they want, but also who they support and who their representative leader is.

Most power is local.

The prestige of power is at the top of society.

Most individuals would not give leadership license to someone that is as ordinary as themselves.

They only want to give that to someone they admire or think is above them.

The higher you go up in a social strata or based on culture, the ‘cooler’ you seem in the eyes of others, the more likely you would given a ‘license to lead’

Or.

Influence.

Sounds familiar? That's why influencer culture got popular with the advent of social media. It is why businesses pay influencers money to promote their products or services.

Most power is local.

Most powerful people at the top are leaders put in place by their representative groups and are beholden to those groups.

Understanding this, when you create an evil King for your fantasy Kingdom or create a terrible teen character that constantly bullies the protagonist, ask yourself, who is validating or putting them into that position of power?

Who is around that antagonist?

Why? What are the benefits to them?

If you answer that question, you can really tackle the real reason why the protagonist needs to defeat this antagonist.

Because to defeat a King doesn't matter but to defeat the system behind that King, that would create significant change.

Because it was that system, the representative groups of people that promoted that ideal or philosophy that gave license or space for that leader to exist.

So, you, yes, you have the power. Which leader have you supported recently and why?

You have power.

Tell me in the comments.