Infrasocial Power

Building from the level of individual interaction, this book intends to shed light on what the author terms "infrasocial power" and the relation between this individual-actor oriented level and public power. In overviewing the origins of power, the author allows for the disaggregation of the social fabric, thus making it possible to: 1) isolate the sequence in which the phenomenon of superordination and subordination materialises; 2) identify the institutional instruments which can be used to limit infrasocial power; 3) discriminate between a social position achieved through engagement with others (and what we are capable of doing for them) from one occupied by means of force and deception; 4) explain the birth and function of public power; and 5) analyze the consequences produced by different political regimes.

Stimulates new ways of thinking through social and political power and power dynamics, examining competition, cooperation, and freedom of choice Sheds light on the nature of infrasocial power and its relation state, institutional, and public power A wide-ranging meditation on power on multiple levels of use to social scientists, political philosophers, and beyond

Autorentext
Lorenzo Infantino is Professor of Philosophy of the Social Sciences at LUISS-Guido Carli in Rome, Italy. He is the author of Individualism in Modern Thought (1998, 2014), reviewed by the late Kenneth Minogue on the first page of the Times Literary Supplement, and Ignorance and Liberty (2003). His research circulates around social and political theory, intellectual history, political philosophy, political economy and sociological theory.

Inhalt

1. Society and Power.- 2. The reshaping of man and the birth of totalitarian power.- 3. The conditions enabling individual choice and the limitation of power.- 4. Pareto and Machiavellianism: the problem and the errors.- 5. Voluntary cooperation and unlimited democracy.