But love is more than power. Power relations are struggles to come out on top, to impose one's own will on the lives of others. But love affirms the relationship itself, not just a desired outcome. It may be that every move in a relationship between lovers, or every political action taken within a community, is a move in a game of power. But the aim of the move is not the affirmation of power, but an affirmation of the relationship itself.
Love affirms both the relationship and the flourishing of the beloved.
What we want from our society, then, is not just laws and institutions designed to protect us from each other. We want a society that cares, a community whose members affirm the flourishing of its members, that is, who love one another. Let's call such a society a beloved community , borrowing a phrase coined by the American philosopher Josiah Royce and used by Martin Luther King. But the members of a beloved community will make and apply their laws with an attitude of love, caring more for the happiness and the full development of each of them than that the letter of the law has been fulfilled. A beloved community, for example, would see right away that its resources should house the homeless and feed the hungry rather than build more mansions and gourmet restaurants.