Power is the condition after politics. Once a political status quo is arranged, only then is power relevant. The processes of power are then how power is exercised within a certain status quo, within certain politics. To understand power we must understand politics. To understand politics we must understand humanity, as it is only humanity which generates politics.
All politics are derived from the mind. That is—the worldview which derives from the mind, and which accordingly informs a political structure. These structures—what we could call “ideologies”—are understandings of what is, and then attempts at proposing what must be.
As a consequence, ideology can only be accepted or formed based on an understanding, or worldview. In this case, worldview is meant in the simplest definition: how one views the world. A practical approach to politics will conflict with an idealistic one, a conservative approach will conflict with a progressive one.
With all the diversity of human thought, conflict is inevitable. With conflict comes violence and with violence comes war. War itself is not representative of power; only the authority to initiate a war and the status quo that follows after a war can be considered power. For power cannot be exercised without a system or without a society.
The relevant question is then: what is a society? It may be proposed that a society is a group of humans that share a common interest. On the contrary, we find many societies with a lack of common interest, only held together by the status quo. And indeed, if common interest alone were sufficient to constitute a society, we would have no need for differing ideology, as all rational creatures have a common interest in living well.
A better definition of a society would be as follows: a grouping of humans who are bounded by shared culture and way of life, who live under a system that maintains material harmony—such that no serious conflict of worldviews is pursued—and that organizes itself formally or informally.
It may be said then that the primary inspiration of worldviews is an interest in living well, and once these material conditions are met, difference of opinion (in worldview) is subordinated. However, there are those who are not content with just material conditions. These people are concerned with both the material and abstract, and thus their worldview cannot be subordinated, so long as their experience (and mind) compel them to this worldview.
They are “the thinkers” or “thinking men”, as they are concerned with abstract conditions. Their counterpart are “the workers” or “working men”, as they are concerned with material conditions. The two cannot exist independently.
A society, according to this logic, desires the suppression of hostile thinkers. For if a society is a system founded on one worldview, the tolerance of a worldview that seeks to destroy it guarantees its destruction when it fails to provide material conditions. When material conditions are not provided, there can no longer be subordination of opinion for the working man. A thinking man will learn to tolerate the regime but wish for its replacement. A working man has little reason not to tolerate the regime until it stops providing.
Stability is the fulfillment of material conditions. Material conditions may be defined as follows: economic security, social cohesion, law and order. The first is the most important, as if a working man cannot fulfill his purpose, he will be swayed by the thought of hostile thinkers who provide him his purpose. If the society has no social cohesion—that is to say, it has multiple cultures, languages, and its values are foreign to the worker, this will accelerate any issue caused from a lack of economic security. Lastly, no society can be maintained without the enforcement of law.
Everyone has a complex French ontology of power relations - until they get punched in the face.