Indigenous Power Versus Surrogate Power

[Keith Broaders]

Understanding the nature of power is the key to understanding all relationships between humans and their institutions. To understand this, it is necessary to understand what Jefferson called the “laws of our being.” Human beings are created with unique characteristics. They have free will. They have the capacity to grow and evolve and appreciate the infinite nature of their being. They have the power to create their own reality—humans are creators.

The Founders saw the truth of this as “self-evident.” In other words, for any rational thinking being, it is just plain common sense to conclude that they are unique among the inhabitants of the planet because they have free will and the ability to manifest thoughts into concrete form. Since each individual human has this power it follows that the only true source of power is the individual. Since that power originates and occurs naturally within each individual it is called “indigenous” power. The other type of power is that which human beings delegate to others which could be called “surrogate” power. Surrogate activities, duties, and limitations are usually laid out in a written agreement. These types of agreements are called contracts, partnership agreements, corporate charters, constitutions, labor union agreements, or any other kind of agreement between the individuals who are creating the specific surrogate and those who will be managing that surrogate.

The governments, companies, unions, and all other organizations we form are surrogates. There is nothing wrong with surrogates as long as the people we put in charge of our surrogates follow the contracts we create with them. The problems occur when those who are running the surrogate begin to think that they have the power. When this happens the surrogate can become less effective at achieving its goals, or even become a danger to those who created it in the first place.

The solution to an out of control surrogate is always the same. The individuals who are impacted by the surrogate’s behavior must declare their indigenous power and regain control of the surrogate or eliminate it and start over again with a new surrogate institution. The important point is that since only individuals have surrogate power, once they declare it the game is over for the surrogate. There is infinite power in the act of declaration!

In the 1700s, the leaders of the American freedom movement knew that they had to reclaim their indigenous power. They also knew they had to declare, in a clearly written document, their authority to create their own government. This is what they did in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The founders had a very clear understanding of indigenous power and surrogate power. The document they created, which is one of the most powerful spiritual/political documents in the history of the human race, clearly states who has the power and who does not:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”

Understanding the difference between surrogate power and indigenous power is the key to liberation from any surrogate that is out of control. Surrogates can use force and deception to create the illusion that they have power; however the only true source of power is the individual. The declaration of indigenous power is the first step to recapturing the power that has been usurped by any surrogate. That is what happened with the American colonists, it is what happened with Gandhi and the people of India, and it is what happened more recently in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

More thoughts at www.restoringtheheartofamerica.com