Powers That Be

From FMOTL Wiki

The "powers that be" is a phrase that has been generally used in the English speaking world, for as long as anyone can remember, to refer to oligarchy of power brokers such as governments, banking establishments, police forces, etc.

It is a preferred term in a freeman context since it uniquely defines what would ordinarily be called "governance", but is not dulled by the contemporaneous labels attributed to political parties in power, or the fact that certain powerful organisations are not strictly speaking "governments".

Sometimes the acronym TPTB is used synonymously with PTB.