If one treats power, along with Kurt Holm, for example, as ability to do damage, increase in power corresponds to the extent of the damage which the power-holder can cause, and/or in the extent of the counter-power which could effectively prevent the damage. Such a starting point does have advantages for methodology and measurement. However, it does not grasp the function characteristic of power of creating order – or does so only indirectly, by way of a theory of the threat of power. The close association of the powerful with the dangerous is really only adequate for archaic societies and archaic ways of thinking, for societies without differentiated communication media.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 636