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Originally Posted by OBW
Did anyone actually think about whether power = authority? It is obvious that there are too many examples of authority with no power, and power with no authority to accept that as true.
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I just thought I'd add something here. You are quite right. In politics we learnt about the differences between legitimacy, power and authority.
Legitimacy is basically being accepted as a ruler. For instance if you are elected in a truely democratic system (or if you are the son of a king), you have legitimacy. Power is the blunt force. The ability to change the behaviour of others. Suppose Russia invaded the Ukraine. They could force the Ukrainians into certain actions. Authority is the right to rule. The difference between this and legitimacy isn't always so clear. As far as I understand it, authority is more of a legal definition whereas legitimacy is about the overall perception.
Obviously the three concepts build on each other. To have a stable system you need all three.
So yes, if the military were to stage a coup in the US, then they will have the power. If they enact martial law, they will have the authority. If there is nothing in the constitution for the eventuality of the coup, they cannot enact martial law and therefore cannot have the authority. And they won't have the legitimacy if the population did not support the coup. But they can have legitimacy if the nation supported it even if the constitution does not.
It wasn't my intention to get political here. I basically just want to say that you are right and that "small" differences can and do matter.
C. S. Lewis in his autobiography,
Surprised by Joy talked about God's might (or power) and his authority quite poetically in my opinion. He basically says that if God were to lose his power, he would still have the authority - even if He could not enact it. Here's an excerpt:
"Of course as I have said, the matter is more complicated than that. The primal and necessary Being, the Creator, has sovereignty de facto as well as de jure. He has the power as well as the kingdom and the glory. But the de jure sovereignty was made known to me before the power, the right before the might. And for this I am thankful. I think it is well, even now, sometimes to say to ourselves, “God is such that if (per impossibile) his power could vanish and His other attributes remain, so that the supreme right were forever robbed of the supreme might, we should still owe Him precisely the same kind and degree of allegiance as we now do…"