A response to Yvain's article An analysis of the formalist account of power relations in democratic societies.

Social Power and Utility

The things people actually care about, like money, success, influence, and psychological health, come entirely from structural/unconscious power.

No. Social Power is very much tied closely to Psychological Health. That people with lots of "structural power" are on average Psychologically healthier is mostly not the result of structural power. Higher IQ, conscientiousness, low time preference and other things that correlate with functionality and thus our social construct of "health" psychological and otherwise are what enables one to accrue what you term "structural power" in the first place. I'm not saying it is the sole source of it merely that social data shows the correlation is pretty strong in the modern US.

Is there any reason at all to think social animals such as ourselves would derive more psychological well being from "structural" than "social" power? In a terminal sense I mean. We have strong evidence people care about social power in itself a lot. "Structural power" is something that in itself excites only non-neurotypicals. Top earners may get excited about earning even more money much like gamers get excited about a high score. It only matters to them either because of their private fixation or their social circle. Having structural power is instrumentally useful, since we can leverage it into other things the monkey brain cares about like a candy bar or sex with a very skilled escort. In conversation on IRC Athrelon noted how this relates to the well known argument of "diminishing marginal utility of money".

The dimishing marginal utility of "structural power"

The standard "liberal" position on it is approximately: "Structural power doesn't matter for happiness and well being after a certain level so we should redistribute it directly via means such as progressive taxation." Pause and think about this for a minute.

To use your example, wouldn't Donalnd Trump get depressed about being being a laughing stock and buffoon who teenage girls can beat with impunity? Perhaps not Donald Trump personally for this exact example but to give examples someone like Howard Hughes certainly could become very miserable while having all the "structural power" in the world. People kill hemselves or completely cut contact with the outside world because of a lack of "social power". Suicide for anyone above direst material poverty is usually about trying to escape this kind of suffering. Worse, the utility of those with social but not "structural" power over this individual would fundamentally derive from his misery.

Isn't there something fundamentally ugly about that? Maybe it is worth in a utilitarian sense but it is a form of Omelas and carries all the burdens of proof real implementations of such scenarios do. If social power is not a good way to redistribute "structural" power and structural power while correlating with merit and mental health does not in itself buy that much happiness the scenario very much does come down to this.

And even if it was an excellent way to do so, note how structural power is fundamentally tied to the wealth creating mechanisms of society! Maybe white married middle class men are rather good at stewarding their material resources and wealth compared to some other demographics an incredible notion I know. But if true redistributing such power results in less wealth creation. Social power today does not nor has it ever accurately matched contributions to wealth creation. Of course neither does "institutional" power perfectly match this. But there are good reasons to expect it to be a better fit, foremost of those is how it can leverage the neat information properties of markets.