Most social scientists believe that the concept of power has two intertwined dimensions. The first involves the degree to which a community or nation has the capacity to perform effectively in pursuing its common goals, which is called collective power . Here, the stress is on the degree to which a collectivity has the technological resources, organizational forms, population size, and common spirit to achieve its goals. In that sense, many nations became more powerful in the second half of the twentieth century, including the United States. Moreover, the collective power of the United States grew because of its ability to assimilate immigrants of varying economic and educational levels from all over the world as productive citizens. The gradual acceptance of African Americans into mainstream social institutions also increased the nation’s collective power.
大多数社会科学家认为，权力的概念包含两个相互交织的维度。第一个维度涉及一个社区或国家在追求共同目标时有效行动的能力，这被称为集体力量。在这里，重点强调的是一个集体在多大程度上拥有实现其目标所需的技术资源、组织形式、人口规模和共同精神。从这个意义上讲，包括美国在内的许多国家，在20世纪下半叶变得更加强大。此外，美国的集体力量之所以增强，是因为它能够同化来自世界各地、具有不同经济和教育水平的移民，使他们成为有生产力的公民。非裔美国人逐渐被主流社会机构接纳，也增强了国家的集体力量。
The second dimension of power concerns the ability of a group or social class within a community or nation to be successful in conflicts with its rivals on issues of concern to it。 Here, the stress is on power over, which is also called distributive power。 When the word “power” is used in the rest of this book, it will always be meant in this distributive sense。 Paralleling general American beliefs, most social scientists think of distributive power as meaning great or preponderant influence, not complete and absolute control。
More specifically, a powerful group or class is one that can realize its goals even if some other group or class is opposed。 Th is definition captures the sense of struggle that is embodied in the everyday meaning of power and it readily encompasses the idea of class conflict。 It also fits with the main goal of this book, which is to show how the corporate rich developed the power to institute the policies they favor, even in the face of the liberal-labor alliance’s organized opposition to most corporate policies and large majorities that opposed specific policies。
权力的第二个维度关注的是社区或国家内部某个群体或社会阶层在与其关注事项的竞争对手发生冲突时取得成功的能力。在这里，重点强调的是“权力之上”，也称为分配性权力。本书其余部分在提到“权力”一词时，都将是指这种分配性的意义。与普遍的美国观念相呼应，大多数社会科学家认为分配性权力意味着巨大或主要的影响力，而非完全和绝对的控制。更具体地说，一个强大的群体或阶层是指即使有其他群体或阶层反对，它也能实现自己的目标。这个定义捕捉到了权力在日常含义中所体现的斗争感，并且很容易包含阶级冲突的概念。它也符合本书的主要目标，即展示企业富豪是如何发展出制定他们所支持政策的能力的，即使面对自由劳动联盟对大多数企业政策的有组织反对以及大多数人对特定政策的反对。
Generally speaking, the ability of a group or class to prevail begins in its control of one or more of the four major social networks—economic, political,military, and ideological—that have been found in historical and cross-national studies to provide the main organizational bases for wielding enduring distributive power in any large-scale society。 The economic network consists of a set of organizations concerned with satisfying material needs through the “extraction, transformation, distribution and consumption of the objects of nature”。
The political network, which is embodied in “the government” in modern times, regulates activities within the geographical area for which it is responsible, including the movement of people,economic goods, and weapons in and out of its territory。 The military network is rooted in organized physical violence that is meant to kill, subjugate, or enslave opponents。 The ideology network is most readily understood as a network of organizations that seeks to provide answers to ultimate questions about the meaning and purpose of life, a greater degree of communal closeness, and the alleviation of guilt and suffering for its members, which generates loyal followers, large budgets through freely given donations, and revered leaders。
Historically, religious communities, such as churches, mosques, and synagogues, were the primary organizations in this network。 However, they were joined in the past several hundred years by messianic political movements on the left and right, groups asserting racial superiority, and highly aggressive nationalistic movements; they give meaning and focus to the lives of their adherents by blaming specific groups or classes for their problems or attacking countries perceived as dangerous and populated by inferior human beings。
一般来说，一个群体或阶级之所以能够占据优势，首先在于它能够控制一个或多个在历史和跨国研究中被发现的大型社会中行使持久分配权力的主要组织基础——经济、政治、军事和意识形态这四大社会网络中的某一个或多个。经济网络由一系列旨在通过“自然资源的开采、转化、分配和消费”来满足物质需求的组织构成。政治网络在现代则体现为“政府”，它负责监管其地理管辖范围内的活动，包括人员的流动、经济物资和武器的进出等。军事网络则植根于旨在消灭、征服或奴役对手的有组织暴力行为。意识形态网络最容易被理解为一系列组织的网络，这些组织试图为关于生命意义和目的的根本问题提供答案，为成员提供更高程度的社区紧密性，并减轻他们的罪恶感和痛苦，从而培养出忠诚的信徒，通过自愿捐赠获得庞大的预算，以及受到尊敬的领袖。历史上，宗教团体，如教堂、清真寺和犹太教会堂，是这个网络中的主要组织。然而，在过去几百年里，左右翼的弥赛亚式政治运动、主张种族优越的团体和极具攻击性的民族主义运动也加入了进来；它们通过指责特定群体或阶级是造成其问题的根源，或攻击被视为危险且由低等人种居住的国家，来为其信徒的生活赋予意义和重点。
Although economic and political networks have been the main power networks in the United States for historical reasons that are discussed in Chapter 8,the four power networks can combine in different ways in different times and places to create widely varying power structures。 For example, military force has led to the capture of the government and control of the economic system in many countries, past and present。 In other countries, well-organized ideological groups have been able to develop popular support and demonstrate the ability to exercise force if need be in maintaining control over the government。
Due to the variety of power outcomes that are found in the historical record, most social scientists believe there is no one ultimate basis for distributive power from which the other types of distributive power can be derived。 This means that the concept of distributive power is a fundamental one in the social sciences, just as energy is a fundamental concept in the natural sciences for the same reason: No one form of energy or power is more “basic” than any other。
尽管由于第8章所讨论的历史原因，经济和政治网络一直是美国的主要权力网络，但四大权力网络在不同时间和地点可以以不同的方式结合，形成截然不同的权力结构。例如，无论是在过去还是现在，军事力量都曾在许多国家导致政府被夺取和经济系统被控制。在其他国家，组织良好的意识形态团体能够获得民众的支持，并在必要时展示维持对政府控制的武力能力。由于历史记录中存在着多种多样的权力结果，大多数社会科学家认为，不存在一种可以作为其他分配权力类型来源的最终基础。这意味着分配权力的概念在社会科学中是一个基本概念，就像能量在自然科学中是一个基本概念一样，原因相同：没有任何一种形式的能量或权力比其他形式更“基础”。
Although these general ideas provide a good general starting point, they are not specific enough to be useful in deciding how to study distributive power in a complex nation-state such as the United States. How, then, can we decide if the corporate rich have “power”?
尽管这些一般性的观点提供了一个良好的总体出发点，但它们并不够具体，无法为决定如何研究像美国这样复杂的民族国家中的分配权力提供有用的指导。那么，我们如何判断企业富豪是否拥有“权力”呢？
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