AUTONOMY    42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for    every individual. But most people need a greater or lesser degree of    autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be    undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own    direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this    initiative, direction and control as single individuals. It is usually    enough to act as a member of a small group. Thus if half a dozen    people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint    effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be    served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above    that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then    their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true    when decisions are made on a collective basis if the group making the    collective decision is so large that the role of each individual is    insignificant. [5]    43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for    autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by    identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they    belong. And then there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be    satisfied with a purely physical sense of power (the good combat    soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting skills    that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors).    44. But for most people it is through the power process-having a goal,    making an autonomous effort and attaining the goal-that self-esteem,    self-confidence and a sense of power are acquired. When one does not    have adequate opportunity to go through the power process the    consequences are (depending on the individual and on the way the power    process is disrupted) boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem,    inferiority feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt,    frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism,    abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders, etc. [6]    SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS    45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society, but in    modern industrial society they are present on a massive scale. We    aren't the first to mention that the world today seems to be going    crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies. There is    good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress    and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than    modern man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and light in    primitive societies. Abuse of women was common among the Australian    aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American    Indian tribes. But it does appear that generally speaking the kinds of    problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph were far less    common among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.    46. We attribute the social and psychological problems of modern    society to the fact that that society requires people to live under    conditions radically different from those under which the human race    evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of    behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier    conditions. It is clear from what we have already written that we    consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the power process    as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which modern    society subjects people. But it is not the only one. Before dealing    with disruption of the power process as a source of social problems we    will discuss some of the other sources.    47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society    are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature,    excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural    small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or    the tribe.    48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression.    The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from    nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial    societies were predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly    increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that    lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible    for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did    before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because    it puts increased disruptive powers in people's hands. For example, a    variety of noise-making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles,    etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want    peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is    restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the    regulations. But if these machines had never been invented there would    have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)    49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes    only slowly) provided a stable _frame_work and therefore a sense of    security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates    nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes    very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable    _frame_work.    50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of    traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological    progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that    you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the    economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other    aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably    break down traditional values.    51. The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the    breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale    social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also    promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt    individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their    communities. Beyond that, a technological society has to weaken family    ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern    society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only    secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal    loyalties of small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the    system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the    expense of the system.    52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints    his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than    appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted    personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is     nepotism or discrimination, both of which are terrible sins in    modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor    job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the    system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an    advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale    communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the    system. [7]    53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities have been    widely recognized as sources of social problems. But we do not believe    they are enough to account for the extent of the problems that are    seen today.    54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and crowded, yet their    inhabitants do not seem to have suffered from psychological problems    to the same extent as modern man. In America today there still are    uncrowded rural areas, and we find there the same problems as in urban    areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in the rural areas.    Thus crowding does not seem to be the decisive factor.    55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during the 19th    century, the mobility of the population probably broke down extended    families and small-scale social groups to at least the same extent as    these are broken down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by    choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within several miles,    that they belonged to no community at all, yet they do not seem to    have developed problems as a result.    56. Furthermore, change in American frontier society was very rapid    and deep. A man might be born and raised in a log cabin, outside the    reach of law and order and fed largely on wild meat; and by the time    he arrived at old age he might be working at a regular job and living    in an ordered community with effective law enforcement. This was a    deeper change than that which typically occurs in the life of a modern    individual, yet it does not seem to have led to psychological    problems. In fact, 19th century American society had an optimistic and    self-confident tone, quite unlike that of today's society. [8]    57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the sense    (largely justified) that change is imposed on him, whereas the 19th    century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he    created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a    piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his    own effort. In those days an entire county might have only a couple of    hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity    than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a    member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered    community. One may well question whether the creation of this    community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the    pioneer's need for the power process.    58. It would be possible to give other examples of societies in which    there has been rapid change and/or lack of close community ties    without the kind of massive behavioral aberration that is seen in    today's industrial society. We contend that the most important cause    of social and psychological problems in modern society is the fact    that people have insufficient opportunity to go through the power    process in a normal way. We don't mean to say that modern society is    the only one in which the power process has been disrupted. Probably    most if not all civilized societies have interfered with the power    process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern industrial    society the problem has become particularly acute. Leftism, at least    in its recent (mid- to late-20th century) form, is in part a symptom    of deprivation with respect to the power process.    DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY    59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those drives that    can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can be satisfied    but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that cannot be    adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power    process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second group.    The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is    frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc.    60. In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be    pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to    consist increasingly of artificially created drives.    61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally fall into    group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of serious effort.    But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities to    everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical needs    are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about whether the    effort needed to hold a job is minimal ; but usually, in lower- to    middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of    obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and    do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. Seldom do    you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case you have hardly    any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process is not    well served.)    62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group    2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the individual.    [10] But, except for people who have a particularly strong drive for    status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives is    insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power process.    63. So certain artificial needs have been created that fall into group    2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising and    marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel    they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed    of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to satisfy these    artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see paragraphs    80-82.) Modern man must satisfy his need for the power process largely    through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the advertising and    marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.    64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these    artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that    appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second    half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts    many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called    by other names such as anomic or middle-class vacuity. ) We suggest    that the so-called identity crisis is actually a search for a sense    of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It    may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the    purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in modern society    is the search for fulfillment. But we think that for the majority of    people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a    surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory    fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for    the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully    satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such    as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.    More...