[astine]

This is not really true. "Power" in a social context proceeds from social relationships. A king only has power if people buy into the idea that he has power. In other words, any power beyond individual brute force is a social construct. Even the idea that the state has a monopoly on violence is a social construct, (and is often not true, even in practice.) So social power depends on the ideas that people in a society hold generally, such as ideas about rights and ownership. So it's often those ideas that define the power relationships in society rather than the other way around.

[jdksmdbtbdnmsm]

Wrong. A king only has power insofar as a people exist to buy into the idea that he has power, hence why kings required armies from the start. As we know, kings did not exist prior to farms that needed protection. This is not a coincidence. Only from the circumstances of material preconditions could such divine rights even be imagined, whether it be kings or founders of PayPal.

Materialism is one reason why I believe Marxism is worth defending.

[jumble_bell]

That's revisionist history. A king only has power insofar as a people exist to buy into the idea that he has power, hence why kings required armies from the start. As we know, kings did not exist prior to farms that needed protection. This is not a coincidence. Only from the circumstances of material preconditions could such divine rights even be imagined, whether it be kings or founders of PayPal.

[asu_thomas]

Utter nonsense. Kings and the like could not exist until agricultural societies needed armies to protect them from invasion. Only from within such material circumstances and relations could divine right be wrought on a public imagination, whether it be monarchic kings or founders of PayPal.

And this is why materialism, Marxism or possibly otherwise, is worth defending.