Listening to this guy
1) 48 Laws of Power isn't a racial thing, its a personal strategy guide.
When he tries to claim its for white people and shyt, he kills himself with regard to providing a legitimate critique, because he doesn't seem to have a knowledge of what he is talking about. I've actually read the books 48 and the 50th law.
2) Talking about blacks never hear about power from black people, doesn't make sense to me, I've heard black americans talk about power and attaining it economically or political power strategies from blacks. Also heard about black power in the church I grew up in, the gross generalization he makes with regard to blacks is harmful. He seems to have bought into a negative view of blacks that black inferiority proponents propagate.
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I'd also say his definition of power is incorrect as well.
Power isn't exclusive, it isn't defined by itself, it doesn't have any purification processes. To say this is to ignore history.
Power in social settings usually comes from numbers or inclusiveness, even tthe inclusiveness of those that do not benefit from the power structure. Power isn't defnied by itself either, in short it different depending on the context, you could say its influence, you could say its the ability to impose one's will (can happen voluntarily or via compulsion), ecnomic power is usually just having resources. So off the bat he starts off on a questionable premise of what power is, IMHO, and from that goes to talking about why you can't be inclusive with c00ns, something that seems to really be a strawman.
Then he claims it is weakness to call the police because it is running to outsiders. This makes no sense, the black citizens pay for these services its not weakness to demand that you get the services you pay for via taxation. Now if he was going to talk about taxation, that would be one thing, but he goes into talking about a policy issue, then jumps to a random ass assertation that black people should treat their life as a business.
One thing that really makes no sense to me is the notion that the idea that a parent telling their child they will not pass anything on to them but that they need to earn their own, is negative. I disagree with his contention that this is barberic. The notion he seems to speak for is that of entitlement, as if a child is entitled to the wealth or the parent, they aren't.
From this he jumps to another assertion, "only a fool, asks for a fair fight". where this assertion comes from, what it is a response to, I have no idea. he wastes damn near 2 minutes talking about MMA and boxing aren't real fights. He then makes up a definition of a fight, instead of being a physical conflict, he says its a incident that has permanent physical consequences or the potential for those consequences. Yet using this definition, boxing and MMA are indeed fights, because boxing and MMA can lead to deaths or permanent physical damage. He then goes on an aside of Floyd's boxing matches being entertaining, but then compares that to a kidnapping and hostage situation, which typically isn't a fight and says its not entertaining. To this he seems to try to further make a point of how fairness doesn't matter. Overall his argument is weak, fights can be fair depends on if the opponants willingly enter into the act, not the result of the incident. We saw this in earlier times with regimented and formalized methods of dueling to the death. now fighting doesn't have to be fair when one aggresses on another against there will, that is the better forumlation of what he is trying to say. Which is true, in the event of defense from assault, the defender has the right to use whatever force available to them to repel an attack. I feel he didn't say this because it doesn't help what he is trying to build off of.
There it is, he jumps from the contention of no fair fights to make the unsupported claim that you can never be safe unless you control your community and society. This is a poor argument in my view, because the very act of people trying to control things outside of their ownership or direct control, tends to lead to the initiation of force against others, which arguably creates more violence and makes all members in that community/society unsafe. He says uncertainty is a guarantor of risk, uncertainty is risk. He then says life spans are longer because risk has been eliminated, this is false, knowledge has increased in how to treat illness and physical damage, this is why life spans have increased.
Then he tries to talk as if power is not a concept, but an actual conscious entity that is uniform. I've already stated how he has made very real incorrect statements as regard to what power is, he claims what power without actually logically being able to support what he is saying.
Its funny he ignores the most disturbing part of 1984, which isn't the government saying things, its the populace actually accepting it.
From 1984 he keeps saying power isn't rational or interested in fairness, which contradicts history of law for the most part, with regard to communal standards dictating usually what law will be, which comes about to ensure communal fairness and less violence.
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That said , I gave the man 30 minutes, I just find the man has such a very deliberate bias and poor argumentation to what he claims, that I can't get down with him on anything else off of GP, just because of it.
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As for the OP's question about power, an individual can acquire a measure of power in either building influence with others as an advisor, saving and investing income to then be able to economically be self sufficient and only interact with those they want to on their own terms, or a host of different ways depending on that persons goal.
If you are a minimum wage worker, you are going to have to sacrifice things now, maybe live with others instead of having your own house, do without now, so you can get money and increase your marketable skills to get higher income, or learn enough about the fieeld you are in and working in at a minimum wage level to increase your productivity and become able to demand more income.
Rule of thumb in attaining economic power, is to shift preference from short term to long term, and that is very difficult for those who have low income, but plenty of people have done this before, it just takes hanging around or building relationships with people so that you are viewed as trustworthy and someone to take a chance on, and having that personal discipline to not make those who help you instantly regret it.
