ARBITRARY authority has always annoyed me. Take bouncers at nightclubs. I’ve lost count of how many times good people have been victims of power-hungry security through no fault of their own. Give someone a badge, the implied right to manhandle someone, and the abuses flow.

Everyone doesn’t respond to being placed in that position in the same way, of course. For each wannabe tyrant there is an equivalent caring figure of responsibility. What matters is how those people are held accountable: by colleagues, by outside agencies, and by the public.

Often small abuses go unremarked upon. In nightclub queues, the unfortunate are knocked back for no specific reason, or the wrong guy is kicked out in a case of mistaken identity. There’s not much you can do. There are exceptions.

G1 Group, which owns many of Glasgow’s bar and club venues, has been a lightning rod for resistance. In one case, disabled couple Nathan and Robert Gale took the firm to court and won compensation over an access altercation with bouncers. Campaign group Better Than Zero, which led direct action protests against the firm over low pay and treatment of staff, claimed victory in December following promises to improve hours and conditions.

Those are a few cheery examples of not accepting authority. Cases aren’t always as bright. Two of the most infamous cases of the psychological response to authority are the Stanley Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments.

Stanley Milgram’s approach stemmed from the experience of the Holocaust, and the question of how thousands of people had been complicit in the most vile and shocking of crimes. His test asked people to apply increasing electroshock voltages to another participant on the instruction of an authority figure. The majority of participants, on command, went above a level that would kill.

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process,” Milgram warned following the result.

That’s obedience. For power-hungry vengeance watch the footage of the Stanford Prison experiment. Volunteers were split into playing the role of prison guards and inmates. The role-play escalated to extreme lengths. The "guards" ended up creating methods of torture and abuse for the inmates. The "prisoners", although rebellious, were eventually subdued by the authoritarian guards. It was a game, a test, between people who were all equal – but both sets fell into their respective roles of master and slave swiftly.

These experiments aren’t novelties. They serve a useful role for everyone, everyday. How would you behave in a similar environment? If an authority figure told you to do something that was unethical, how would you respond? If vindictive behaviour became part of your job’s culture, would you stay? How would you organise a response? If you were placed in a position of authority, how would you treat those you were expected to lead or hold responsibility for?

Those challenges are inescapable. It’s impossible to live without being placed somehow – in families, work, relationship, communities, campaigns – in a maze of structures and hierarchies. Most of us will have bosses at some time in our lives, with the complicated relationship that brings. Often bosses have bosses, and that makes life even more complicated!

Fraser Stewart, a student from Glasgow, is an excellent example. For 18 months he was with the Department for Work and Pensions. “It was the best job I’ve ever had,” he said on his first experience there. Then, after the Tories came to power, his role changed. He was told by his bosses to start imposing sanctions on people. He said his job changed “from merciful to mercenary; helping hand to hired gun” as the sanctions targets took hold. So he quit.

Resignation in principle is difficult – especially for people with families, mortgages, and debts. But surely we must have some form of moral limit? What are we willing to compromise in the name of our jobs or our self-preservation at others’ expense?

Gore Vidal, the prolific American writer, said it is when the gatekeepers rebel that the world can change, and corrupt establishments tumble. When the likes of the military, border guards, the police, advisers in the corporate sectors of energy, finance, and weapons, the dodgy accountancy firms, lawyers, and journalists resist, then those who claim arbitrary authority have a problem.

We cannot, in chaotic and concerning times, allow ourselves to be compliant. The extremism of any leader – any president – can only be implemented when men and women are willing to accept their orders. In history they have often got away with it, but there has always been resistance.

People have organised. They have gone on strike. They have asserted that human liberty can ultimately, with bravery, overcome authority.