Chapter 5
The Return of the Agent
When people are governed as objects, they do not stop acting as agents. They simply begin acting within a different relationship.
This is where many systems misunderstand resistance.
A powerful institution may interpret opposition as evidence of irrationality, selfishness, or hostility. Sometimes that interpretation is correct. People can act from prejudice, error, or narrow self-interest. Agency does not guarantee wisdom.
But agency does guarantee something important: people respond to the structures around them.
If a system rewards cooperation, people have reasons to cooperate. If a system demands sacrifices while denying the legitimacy of those asked to sacrifice, people have reasons to adapt strategically.
The resulting behavior may look like disobedience.
But sometimes it is the predictable consequence of a failed relationship.
Consider a workplace where employees believe managers are acting fairly. They may accept difficult decisions because they understand the reasons behind them, even when those decisions impose costs. The same employees may react very differently if they believe the stated reasons are merely a justification for preserving advantages at the top.
The external decision may be identical.
The relationship is not.
This distinction matters because power often focuses on outcomes while neglecting the conditions that produce them. A manager may ask, “Did the employees follow the rule?” A government may ask, “Did citizens comply?” An institution may ask, “Did the system produce the desired result?”
But these questions leave out the central moral issue.
How was that result achieved?
A relationship based on understanding and one based on domination can produce the same immediate behavior. The difference appears over time, when people respond not only to commands but to what those commands reveal about their standing.
This is the problem of adversarial agency.
When a person is recognized as an agent within a reciprocal relationship, their agency can support cooperation. When they are treated as an obstacle to be controlled, their agency becomes something the system must manage.
The relationship changes from coordination to contest.
This does not mean every conflict between power and individuals is evidence that power is unjust. Complex societies require disagreement. People often resist rules because those rules are inconvenient, even when the rules are justified.
The important distinction is whether the conflict arises from disagreement within a shared framework or from the absence of such a framework.
In a reciprocal relationship, people can argue because they share the assumption that reasons matter. They may disagree about the reasons, but they recognize the structure of the conversation.
In a nonreciprocal relationship, the weaker party learns that argument itself has limited value. If their reasons cannot affect the decision, then other strategies become more attractive.
Information can be withheld. Rules can be interpreted creatively. Alliances can form. Pressure can be applied elsewhere.
These responses are often described as failures of cooperation. But they are also forms of adaptation by agents operating within the environment created for them.
A system that refuses to recognize agency does not eliminate agency. It merely encounters agency in less cooperative forms.
This is one of the central lessons of power.
The people affected by a system are not passive material upon which the system acts. They are part of the system’s environment. Their interpretations, expectations, and responses shape what the system becomes.
The attempt to remove agency from the relationship often produces more complicated forms of agency.