At one and the same time they are conceived of as ‘deviations’ from the basic phenomena of social life, as ‘normalized improbabilities’, and as structures which always assume that influence normally does not have to be based implicitly or explicitly on power, but can be exercised with ease and practised as determined by the situation, without making it essential and without having much depend on it. Power presupposes that not too many problems which can be solved only by power will arise; in the same way that, within communication regulated by power, it must be assumed that not too many communication problems will turn into code problems.

DEFINE: Distinguishes power from influence by noting power is a fallback that presupposes most communication problems remain solvable without it.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 728