Anyone who claims that people should just be left alone as they are to interact with others sensibly and responsibly, and all would be for the best of all possible worlds, is either remarkably naïve or deviously misleading. If history has one consistent message for us, it is that genuine cooperation and mutual respect only flourish if none is so powerful as to be able to dominate others, and no one is so weak as to be at the arbitrary mercy of the rest.

So if we really want to release people’s potential to collaborate for the good of all, we have to target any concentration of power and press for a more balanced redistribution.

This is not an idealistic aspiration of armchair theorists or some form of envy-driven impulse amongst those on the margins of society. It is the guiding principle of every self-respecting state since time immemorial.  Where one state is too powerful compared with others, the latter would have a choice – take collective action to bind the powerful into an agreement to treat them with respect, or risk being picked off by it one by one.

Britain was a past master with strategic alliances across Europe to keep Spain in check in the 16^th/17^th centuries, oppose France in the 18^th/19^th centuries, but left it too late in the face of the rise of Germany in late 19^th/early 20^th century. And if the balance of power is a critical objective in maintaining constructive relations between nations, it is equally so in securing positive relations between different groups within nations.

The lesson, as I draw out in my new book, Against Power Inequalities, is a simple one. For centuries it is where people have effectively joined forces in their struggle for a more inclusive, balanced power structure that the human condition has truly been improved for the benefit of all. On the other hand, once anyone – a nation, a political leader, an institution, a business, a church – is allowed to accumulate vast power in relation to others, the interests of the latter would almost certainly be thoughtlessly disregarded – workers with insecure jobs, women stuck in discriminatory cultures, victims of military conflicts, people harmed by environmental degradation, the poor, immigrants, and other vulnerable minorities.

But isn’t it impossible to ever attain a greater balance of power? Those who are already more powerful would use their strength to resist change. And any attempt to invest someone with sufficient power to challenge them risks a new autocrat taking over. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to leave power relations well alone, and rely on the charity of the rich and the magnanimity of the strong to get a few more drops of amelioration trickle down? Of course not. The past is already replete with countless examples of the powerful riding roughshod over those who cannot stand up to them.

The truth is that we can redistribute power without letting power flow into a new form of authoritarian control – the key being democratic collective action. Through unions, cooperative workplaces, citizen-based reform movements, and accountable governments, power can be spread more evenly. And the extent to which that is going to be achieved is the measure we should use to judge any new plan for change and reform to be put before us.