Absolutely no major book, be it pop or a college text touches on the role of power in the relationship. I recommend reading up on game theory, which might as w

Absolutely no major book, be it pop or a college text touches on the role of power in the relationship. I recommend reading up on game theory, which might as well be understood as the study of the role of power in relationships. Interestingly enough, your portrait of banks abusing customers is a lot like my view of how I abuse my bank. They give me risk-free credit, help me manage my money, and make basically zero revenue from me. All I really have to do is read the fine print and avoid going into debt, which isn't especially hard. Milken is an interesting guy to mention, actually. He started out as a great example of powerlessness--a low level employee who happened to be one of the few Jewish guys at a sleepy, Waspy firm, where he was stuck analyzing the stuff nobody else cared about. I guess he had some secret reserve of power that helped him fake his way into basically running the company and making a killing before getting shut down by some overzealous regulators. Milken doesn't contradict your theory, but he does fill in the missing variable--power is something people accumulate, and very often they accumulate it within their lifetimes.