# A Theory of power ## By Lady Emily Goodwin, Professor of History and Constitinoal Law @ the University of Manitoba, Earth, 83342 Much has been made of Dr. Samantha Lewer-McIntosh's new peice of progressive propaganda, [[In Progress An Apology to Laurencelles]]. I felt it pertinent to articulate an alternative theory of power within the Federation. To Lewer-McIntosh the Federation is ruled by the Eklords and the Aristocracy. The D.A.M., the Senate, the President and the Commons are all manipualted tools of those two real power holders, trying to maintain control over society to keep their small circle of elite in charge while keeping the masses and marginalzied out of power. To her, the Netizans are not a problem, but a glorious end state for us all to reach too. The pesky AI-laws that keep our enemise from invading shoudl be abolished so we can have hte machines fight for us while we live on the net she says! Let me suggest that the Federation contains within it a series of well functioning institutions which are presently in need of some repairs, rather than a return to some past non-existent golden age. The power is multi-faceted but reflective of the way it has developed in our society. The aristcoracy is highly mobile, with many families falling and new ones rising, the senate for all its problems is deeply concnered with the well being of the Federatiosn citizens, and for all the machinations of powerful D.A.M.s the House of Commons and Presidency are still the democratically elected centers of power through which all major decisions flow. Rather than assemble some set of glorious lineages Like a Cannadian historian, I want to leap to my feat and explain how we have a great set of institutions, and a great people, which together make this Federation able to achieve anything. However, I don't think Dr. Lewer-McIntosh would care. She has heard that story, as have so many others, too many times. Her argument is that those institutions have failed, and that they are not so great. She would point out that someone in my position, or hers, have clear reasons to stand and defend our intuitionally protected class positions. That we benefit from systemically emebded economic, soical, and in my case political privileges which the vast majority of Federation citizens, not even considering the underclass of netizins which someone like me propagandistically reproduces my destation of in advertisements for my imperialist, lordly miliitary. I've likely left our some recongition about us being human and something about our respective religions. All of which would be a fair critique of the Federation, cognizant of her positionality within it. You all know why I think netiziens are a systemic scourge on the Federation. Our system has such a bountiful social safety net that all one has to do is try. It is true that trying does not promise one a way to the title of Lord or Eklord. However that is where the selfish naracsism of this other view appears to me. The federation system of nobility is predicated on an intergenerational belief, connecting to the present to the past and the future. it acknowledges that life ends, and the netizens desire to escape the end of life fundamentally offends that acknowledment. To argue that because one in their generation cannot acheive the highest noble title is to ignore that future generations may achieve such a rank. Of course this is what is rejected as whorshipping that glorified past or asking what my ancestors would have done. So instead I would note that outside of periods of economic crisis, the Federation economy even in times of great instability has been able to find meaningful labour for up to 90% of its working members, under good rulers reaching periods as high as 93%. Present labour shortages are problematic. They are a clear result of the struggle for funding for loans. However this present shortage of labour has not prevented the literal of the Federation from finding jobs compared to the Netizans. For those who want the state to make better jobs, the current situation behind closed doors is this: The war sucked up a great deal of peopled, killed many, wounded many more. This pushed about 2% of the Federation population to the Net, and a massive labour market reformation. Crippled credit institions barely recovering from the civil war have been pushed to the max to fund the great war. At present there is not enough money for the free market to make the loans necessary to restart the economy. To free up the capital, Dr. Lewer-McIntosh will have to find some part of the federal budget ot cut - surely she would say the money saved by losings the lords, the inefficiency of two navies, the costs of the senate, etc, combined with military cuts, the funds can be found. And perhaps she is correct. However, the result either from her scheme or another will be cuts, job losses, a slow pace, draw out legal battles, perhaps even shooting battles, and little benefit in the short term for questionable long term benefit. In the short term the question is, do you cut services or do you reduce the military, as either is the only quick route to savings, and is ultimately a question for the commons, not the DAM. Perhaps then, when thinking of hte DAM, we can address her four main points: food, shelter, beauty, and work. Of course, if Dr. Lewer-McIntosh had some genuine asnwesr to the short term labour struggle were in, the whole Lords and Parliament would like to hear it. However we have heard nothing from Dr. Lewer-McIntosh. I am therefore forced to conclude that she does not have a real recommendation on our present labour shortage. Indeed I believe the whole of her critique is, in truth, a system critique directed at two real pieces of our Federation: the capitalist economic system, and the hereditary nobility or other 'ancesteral' institions like the Senate. There are likely other areas she will retreat to - the common law, the broader political system, or the lack of a commonly enforced minimum culutrla and economic standard. I shall deal only with her primary target. The secondary ones I leave to those better trained. On the economic system, besides teh already stated stats on its success, draw from offical Federation publications, I believe the core of her economic critique ishte existing of private corporations, the free market, and the existence of vast inequalities in wealth, which are notably perpetuated under our system of nobility hereidtary or others, as slightly seperate from that same nobilities and coporations infleuence on the political and by extneesion the connection to teh core ancestrial poltiical instition of the Senate.