What is power?

How does it become centralized or decentralized?

These questions are at the heart of understanding how governments work.

Humankind has barely scratched the surface of what it takes to provide for democracy, equality, and reduced social risk.

History has taught us that centralizing power in one group member creates maximum power inequality and typically results in abuse of power.

Whether done consciously or unconsciously, that group member will inevitably make decisions that serve personal rather than public interests.

It's human nature.

In The Four Powers, Hanania provides a fast-paced historical assessment of centralized power.

From World War I to crypto, Hanania explains the emerging trend toward technodemocracy: a decentralized system of governance whereby power-centralized institutions (such as churches, banks, political parties, campaign donors, Amazon, and the CIA) become obsolete.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

From the author of Architecture of a Technodemocracy (2018), an Amazon bestseller for both U.S. politics and sociology, comes this eye-opening analysis of the human power structure.

Jason M. Hanania is an attorney, an engineer, and a former U.S. government employee.

INTRODUCTION

An Equation for Power

In 2016 I set out to write the book Architecture of a Technodemocracy.

It documents a system for ending political party systems using technology and democracy.

Before authoring that book, I searched far and wide for an institutional definition of democracy but found none.

If you asked ten social scientists for a simple definition of democracy, you would get ten different responses.

As an engineer, I found this frustrating.

I wanted a more technical understanding of democracy, a mathematical framework to build on.

The same way physical science provides equations for motion (such as force equals mass times acceleration, or F = ma), I wanted a social science equation for democracy...