by Madeleine Kando
This essay is based on Bertrand Russell’s 'Power, A New Social Analysis'. The book is very much a product of its time; a time when war with Germany was about to begin. The Western world was divided between democracies and countries led by successful revolutionary dictators.
What is power? Is it good or bad? Or is it neutral, like a hammer when you need to put a nail in a wall? The origin of the word ‘power’ comes from the Latin word ‘potere’, which means ‘to be able’. In French, the word ‘pouvoir’ means both ‘power’ and ‘to be able to’.
Let’s face it, without power, nothing would get done. My husband needs muscle power to mow the lawn. I need fine-motor power to move my fingers on the keyboard.
But that kind of power is self-contained; it’s neutral. The problem begins when someone seeks to exert power over others or other beings. Power over humans, non-humans, land, and other resources. There is a difference between the amount of power you need to have enough to eat and pay for a roof over your head, and the kind of power that has caused problems for our species ever since we grew frontal lobes.
There are people who crave power more than others. I myself want power over my cat. I won’t let her pee wherever she likes, and when I was a young mother, I had power over my children. I told them when to go to bed, what time to get up, etc. My husband was a CFO and had decision-making power over a small staff. We all have some degree of power, if only to control our own thoughts.
But that kind of power is barely worth the name. It is the power of men that leads nations that we should be worried about. The Stalins, the Hitlers, and the Putins of the world.
According to the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, the desire for power is one of the strongest human motives. ‘Power is a fundamental concept in Social Science, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. Imagination is the goad that forces human beings into restless exertion after their primary needs have been satisfied.’
In other words, it stems from an infinite desire for something that will never be satisfied. The Boa constrictor, he says, once he has swallowed his prey, goes to sleep and is content until he is hungry again. Man is not satisfied when his basic needs are met. His imagination makes him want more and more.
Powerful men/women want to lead. The good ones among them also believe that what they can accomplish is also good for society. But for the despot, what they feel they can accomplish may or may not be good for society. They don’t really care.
Is there a limited amount of power in the world, and when some people accrue too much of it, there is not enough left for others? It’s like a magnet. The more you have, the more you get. Then, since everybody wants it, it also attracts the non-powerful. They need to feel powerful by proxy. They feel powerful, as a group, because the group itself feels superior to non-group members. The followers as a group also have power, even though they are not individually powerful.
In the past, it was easier. People accepted the fact that certain classes had and deserved to have power. It was the will of God. The King and the Church had all the power, but it was generally accepted, like the sun rising in the morning. The trouble started when these two major seats of power started to lose their authority. Then the race for power was on, since everyone had a go at being the equivalent of a King or a Priest. A need for an arbiter arose to avoid everyone killing each other over power, and presto, we had a government.
Bertrand Russell distinguishes three main types of power: 1) Naked Power, which is used by the Military and the Police to conquer or control the citizenry. 2) Revolutionary Power, which comes into play when the State no longer meets the people’s needs. 3) Power over Opinion, which Russell considers the most important one.
Without this kind of power, soldiers wouldn’t believe in the cause and would stop fighting, and laws would be broken because no one would agree on their validity. Most of our Western values are based on the power of opinion. We think that power concentrated in one person is not only bad for society but will eventually destroy that society.
The larger question is how to keep power from becoming a destructive force in the world. It might be our instinct to acquire it, but many powerful leaders in history have purposely limited their own power, or at least used it for the good of their country and not their own personal gain. George Washington was one of those leaders.
You find many delusional, power-hungry individuals who think they are a King, Napoleon, Hitler, or even God in mental hospitals. Could part of the answer be in the ability to convince others that one is not insane? That if they follow you, they will become powerful?
The larger question is how to keep power from becoming a destructive force in the world. Power, Russell says, can only be beneficial if its end goal is not power itself, but to help society and if the negative effects of the means do not overwhelm the positive effects of the end.
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