f habit then as a response to a particular situation. As a further adaptive response "the sense of powerlessness may also lead to a greater susceptibility to the internalisation of the values, beliefs or rules of the game of the powerful"(Gaventa, 1980:17). What may have once been strong convictions to a people are systematically lost and the beliefs of the ruling class are accepted in silence, not only because of a sense of powerlessness but because they have been indoctrinated to condone whatever the powerful put forward. Gaventa applies Luke's three dimensional theory of power to the case of the Central Appalachian valley in the United States. He argues that the dimensions of power can be used to better understand the pattern of quiescence that has been occurring in this region of indisputable inequities for over a generation. The pluralist approach is established as inadequate in its attempt to interpret power relationships alone and the implementation of the other two dimensions is found to be essential to explain the situation in the Appalachian mountains. The History of Central Appalachia has developed much like that of a primitive country under the influence of colonization by a dominant world power. It is one in which an isolated, agrarian society has sparked the interest of the industrialized world as having economic potential, and has consequently been established as a dependant and thrust into a rapid series of transformation to bring it up to modern standards. Productivity and economic pursuits are the princ...
