[hga]

As you note, we don't get rid of power. Sounds flatly impossible, not to mention dystopian as you note (insert here any one of several SF works that e.g. make the healthy and fast wear weights so they're slow).

The partial answer I prefer is the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) and a well armed citizenry. It puts a ceiling on the tyranny the "powerful" can impose, by allowing empowerment of the less powerful.

For the most recent recognition of this concept, note that one of the many, many rules ISIS is imposing is that nobody else can own guns: http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2014/06/totalitarian-gove... (link to a blog so you won't use up your Torgygraph monthly quota; the author is very reliable). Even the anti-gun US authorities, when occupying Iraq, allowed each household to own one AK-47.

Before you have to resort to that, note e.g. Heinlein's advise that you can almost always vote against someone. As long as the system allows negative votes to oust the powerful, they too are working under a ceiling, although of course they frequently don't realize it until it's too late, e.g. ask Eric Cantor, the first House Majority leader to lose an election since the office was created in 1899. Cost the powerful power, and they'll change their ways or continue to lose power.