Power Remains Unseen Because It Coincides with the Rules
There is a form of power that does not rely on force. It neither forbids nor represses, nor does it display itself. It operates with greater effectiveness by shaping the field within which everything unfolds, long before any actor begins to choose.
Braudel (1979) identified this structure while examining the material foundations of medieval capitalism. Those who dominated Mediterranean trade routes did not produce the goods that circulated through them. The conditions of circulation, who could trade, at which prices, and toward which markets, were already established before merchants spoke. Venice was powerful because it decided who could trade, not because it manufactured silk or spices.
Foucault (1975) gave this logic a precise name: normalization. Disciplinary power does not say “you cannot”. It produces subjects who move naturally within a field of possibility they did not choose and that, for the same reason, they do not perceive as someone else’s choice. It remains invisible because it coincides with the rules of the game, with what appears obvious, natural, inevitable.
Zuboff (2019) has shown how this logic operates in digital capitalism. Platforms do not control behaviour by prohibiting it. They construct the environment within which behaviour takes shape, collect the data that render it predictable, and use that predictability to orient it further. Control becomes infrastructural without becoming explicit.
Three authors, three domains, one shared structure: the most effective form of power is the one that remains unseen because it coincides with the conditions within which everything else occurs.
This is the necessary premise for understanding what is happening between artificial intelligence and finance. The transformation concerns the conditions within which financial power operates, not a new tool in the hands of the usual actors. The series of essays that begins here seeks to make that transformation visible.