Proxying Power

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of “proxying power.” Years ago I joined an executive sales trip to a major carrier who had outsourced all customer service to a major system integrator.

During that week-long trip, our sales executive, Tom, began to act as the system integrator’s executive lead. He was providing management and direction to the system integrator’s managers and project leads. Having this “power” over the system integrator’s teams obviously helped us tremendously in winning the account.

He managed to assume this power by acting as a proxy on behalf of the system integrator’s executive lead, Susan. Susan was out of the office traveling and when she returned she had come down with a bad flu and was out sick. Her reports knew better than to “bother” her at home. Escalating issues unnecessarily was frowned upon. Questioning her direction was not tolerated.

Our sales executive, Tom, had a very good relationship with Susan. She was happy to hear from him even when she was sick. She was interested in the project moving forward and gave Tom instruction to pass on to the team. Because of this, Tom effectively assumed authority for her team in her absence. Tom could ask the team to do anything because he was the only person in direct contact with the ultimate source of power – Susan. He was proxying her power.

This happens in a number of scenarios. Corporate hierarchy is in many ways an implied power proxy from top to bottom. A common negotiation strategy is that the negotiator is not the ultimate decider, and the ultimate decider is unavailable. This gives the negotiator complete autonomy to “proxy” the power of the decider.

So let’s break down the ingredients of an effective power proxy. There are three roles: the power source, the power proxy, and the plebs (for lack of a better term).

First there needs to be someone who is perceived to be the ultimate source of power, the ultimate decider; this is the “power source”. His or her authority should be perceived to be absolute and unquestionable by the plebs (though who are expected to take direction without question). The power source should be inaccessible to the plebs.

The “power proxy” enters the equation in the middle representing the power source’s will to the plebs. The plebs need to believe that the power proxy is in direct communication with the power source and directly represent his or her will.

If this scenario exists, the “power proxy” has now assumed absolute authority on behalf of the “power source”. So long as the connection between the power source and power proxy can not be audited by the plebs, the plebs have no choice but to assume that the statement by the power proxy is absolute. The power proxy, however, does not necessary have to be a direct pass-through proxy. The power proxy can make any demand he or she wishes as the implication is that the directive is the will of the power source, but there is no way to validate that.

This power proxy relationship allows for the proxying of the totalitarian power of a supreme leader widely to assert far greater command or influence than the supreme leader could possibly assert directly.

In large companies, some CEOs or COO use "henchmen" to go deep working on tactical issues with teams. These henchmen speak with the authority of the CEO or COO.

Likely this is how the Roman Empire was managed. This is why it is critical that the Emperor be perceived as an absolute power even by those who previously may not have been part of the Roman Empire. However, the local governors were perceived to be proxying the power of the Emperor, when in fact, the communication bandwidth between the Emperor and the Governors could not have been high enough to deal with day-to-day matters.

This could also explain the success of monotheism over polytheism. Having a single central absolute power who is unavailable allows those who proxy that power to have ultimate authority. Prayer gives the perception of a communication channel with the absolute power, but that communication channel can not be audited or validated. If the power proxy can successfully persuade the plebs that he or she has a direct connection to this absolute power and there is no absolute power that is comparable or superior, then that power proxy represents the ultimate source of power in the world.

Polytheistic religions would have conflict. Multiple power proxies that represented individual gods might be in conflict.

Driving Osama Bin Laden into hiding actually makes it easier for his network to proxy his power if they can make a convincing claim to be in contact and giving direction on his behalf.

The United States democracy does a good job balancing the benefits of a strong power proxy with the downfalls. The President is an ultimate power source. The two-party system creates an inherent dual-power-proxy role. Instead of multiple factions fighting, you have two power sources in perpetual conflict rising above one another periodically. By limiting the term to 8 years and making the Supreme Court (a group of 9 instead of a single proxy) the effective power proxies for the ultimate power of the Constitution, you have a number of safeguards to the systematic centralization of power.

What Christ or Christ’s disciples succeeded in doing was creating a two-level power proxy: God to Christ to those who represented Christ. God was the absolute source of power; Christ was the ultimate source of power on earth; those who represented Christ were Christ’s proxies and represented his ultimate authority. Through his death but ultimate ascension to heaven, Christ remained a source of power, but was inaccessible, which allowed for a more perfect proxy by his followers.

Joseph Smith effectively created a three-level proxy and founded Mormonism. The church of Scientology has set up a similar, though perhaps more intricate power proxy.

The advantage the Roman Emperor had over a monotheistic God was that he was known to exist in the flesh. His power could be directly felt. The Christ proxy set up a show down between two in-the-flesh sources of power. Because Christ represented God directly and the Roman gods were decentralized, Christianity was bound to hit a collision course with the Roman Empire. Ultimately the Christ proxy proved stronger than the Emperor proxy and the Roman Empire recognized and embraced this religion directly. This ultimately led to the Catholic Church.

Canonization became important. Christ's words were powerful indicators of his tangibility as a real power source. However, the texts and the authors of texts that purported to represent Christ's words became a type of power proxy in and of themselves. As multiple texts were allowed and multiple interpretations were possible, the power proxy would fragment. Canonization of the life and words of Christ helped to reassert a single centralized authority on the life and words of Christ.

Protestantism effectively countered the centralized power proxy created by the Catholic Church by allowing a more direct connection between God, Christ and the people. As the Christ proxy becomes less tangible thousands of years later, the influence of that proxy may wane.

The void could allow for a stronger three-level power proxy from God, especially if disillusionment with the existing power structures creeps in to undermine other sources of power in the world today and desire for salvation overrides the natural skepticism the plebeian class has toward new power sources and power proxies.

However, for the scenario to work, the in-the-flesh individual will need to become inaccessible, ideally passing away, before the power proxy is attempted. The primary counter to this is a highly connected world that can quickly and effectively audit any claims of absolute power and a plebeian class that is inherently skeptical of new power sources.

(As an aside, while in this article I present a simple model to systemically break down how and why religion and political structures can proxy the power of an inaccessible power source, this does not imply that all power sources or power proxies are inherently evil. As a Christian myself, I believe that, in the hands of those who are naturally skeptical but believe in the power of goodness, Christianity is a powerful influence for positive progress and change in the world.)