Critique of Power

In #258, Nietzsche offers the image of vines on a tree to illustrate how an aristocrat, i. e. a "more complete human being" (#257), is supported by the lower classes.  From the logic of the imagery, it follows that the taller the tree, the higher the reach of the vine, i. e. the 'more complete' the aristocrat.  On that basis, a critique of Power-relations can be developed, according to which systems in which the repression or neglect of lower classes by upper classes is exposed as self-defeating, e. g. Fascism, the Machiavellian Oligarchism of Strauss, the Libertarianism of Rand, predatory Capitalism, etc.  However, also vulnerable to that critique is Nietzsche's own assertion, in #258, that it is "good and healthy" for an "aristocracy" to "sacrifice . . . untold human beings, who, for its sake, must be reduced or lowered to incomplete human beings."  For, such sacrifice, reduction, and lowering, perhaps unwittingly, exemplifies the same pattern of the self-destructiveness of Power as do the other cases.