A Quick Overview of Power in History

1. A Quick Overview of Power in History Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,None but ourselves can free our minds.

2. 1. Lao Tzu (6th C BC?) • Father of Taoism • Mythical figure? • Tao Te Ching (?) – a return to nature rather than action To know others is knowledge to know yourself is insight to control others is strength to control yourself is true power

3. 2. Sun Tzu (544BC – 496BC) • The Art of War • Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. • He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious. • The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. • Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. • Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

4. 3. Plato (424BC-348BC) • “There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” • The education system must create these people • The Greek Philosophers • Plato and Aristotle focused on the normative questions of political power • The measure of the man is what he does with power.- Pittacus (640BC-658BC)

5. 4. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) • In context: • Middle Ages • Secularization • Conflict between the city states / lack of Italian unity • The Prince (1513) – Principe Nuovo • A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study but war and it organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands. • A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

6. 4. Cont. • A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests. • He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. • The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. • Not really a story about the “ends justifying the means” • Rules and Maxims based on history and actual experience • “He who enables someone to become powerful ruins himself” • “Don’t truth the French” • “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution”

7. 4. Cont. • Morality and Religion • “Princes who follow strict moral principle will be destroyed by those who don’t” • “Men never do good unless driven by necessity” • Republicanism • The importance of the voice of the ordinary person

8. 5. Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) • In context: • Anti Monarchy • English Civil War • “I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. “ • How to convince people to accept the rule of monarchs • Without some sort of legitimate power there will be a state of anarchy • Defended the monarchy not by “divine rights” but by scientific justification • Not overly successful

9. 6. John Locke (1632-1704) • In Context: • English Civil War • “Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.” • Classical liberalism (property rights, natural rights) • Natural Law • Human are equal with rights to life, liberty, property • Rights justified by God and reason • Men not willing to give up natural liberties to an absolute monarch

10. 7. Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) • There was a sphere of being separate from the state • Family, economy, religion • Civil society precedes the state and the individual • Balance of power between the executive, legislative, judicial • Checks and balances

11. 8. Jean-Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778) • In context: • French Revolution • “Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.” • “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.” • “The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.” • Power in democracy and education • Power over: democracy as an expression of general will

12. 9. Georg Wilhel Hegel (1770-1831) • In context: • Prussia • French Revolution • Mutual recognition between Lord and Serf • Power viewed as relational interdependence • Master could not life without slave • Master’s freedom illusory because dependent on the “other” • Power analyzed as a struggle involving coercion and domination

13. 10. Karl Marx (1818-1883) • In context: • Class struggles • Capitalism will produce internal issues and collapse – to be replaced by communism • “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.” • “Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

14. 11. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) • “God is Dead” • Will to Power: people and animals only want to go on living as a necessary condition for asserting their power on the world. • “All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” • He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.