Though democracy is widely understood as a form of government, a particular organization of the state, the term derives from the Greek words for people (demos) and power (kratia). It’s easy to get romantic about “people power.” What distinguishes the work of Frances Fox Piven is her realism. Democratic power, she argues in Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, derives from the fact that social superiors need the cooperation of their subordinates to achieve their ends. Public officials need the consent of the governed, capitalists need the work of laborers, patriarchs need the labor and submission of women. That dependence of the superior on the subordinate gives the latter tremendous leverage. When they exercise “their ability to disrupt a pattern of ongoing and institutionalized cooperation that depends upon their continuing contributions,” ordinary people may not achieve the entire renovation of their social estate, but they can get the process going.