Power is the ability to shape what other people do. Authority is power that others accept as rightful — power plus legitimacy. The distinction matters because the two run on completely different fuel: power can be imposed on people who hate it, while authority only exists for as long as people keep granting it. Tap a base below to see how compliance is actually produced, then press Withdraw consent to test which arrangements survive when people stop believing.
A leader and a following
forceselect a baseconsent
Every arrangement below produces the same outcome — people do things — but through different mechanisms. Watch the arrows: who is pushing, and which way?
The force/consent bar is a teaching schematic for comparing bases, not measured data.