Robert Bierstedt
Since philosophers appear practically as sociologists when they address this topic, it makes sense to turn to sociologists directly. I want to begin with Robert Bierstedt, whom I already addressed – critically - in the section on progress. He proved to be more “powerful” in his analysis of social power.
Bierstedt specifies right away the intricate nature of the problem of power and points out the similarity of this phenomenon to electrical power. He writes: “We see the effects and manifestations of both but not the phenomenon itself. Social power is transformed into order, force, and authority; electrical power into light, heat, and motion. The misapplication of both, to be macabre for a moment, can result in death.”[28] Still, the phenomenon of these is unclear, Bierstedt writes. One can’t even find in any dictionary a satisfactory definition of electricity other than the statement that it is “a fundamental entity of nature.” We can state in a similar vein that power is “a fundamental entity of society”: this statement will hardly clarify anything. Our relative ignorance about the meaning of power, Bierstedt notes, is in itself a curious phenomenon, considering that this word has been in use since the dawn of mankind. At this point Bierstedt reminds St. Augustine’s answer about time; the thinker had an idea about it until he was asked what it is. (“Si non rogas, intelligo.”)
To reveal what power is, Bierstedt had to deal first with certain concepts which are often associated with the word “power” or are used as its synonyms, for example “authority.” He accomplishes this task brilliantly, proving that “authority is a species of power.” (p. 221) Power, however, is not necessarily authority; it is a universal phenomenon in human society, and many social relations contain elements of power.
The next stage is the separation of the concept prestige from power. Here again, Bierstedt shows easily that prestige is not power, though it does include elements of power – but not always. Very important is also the attack on knowledge; Bierstedt even speaks ironically of Francis Bacon who said that knowledge is power. His argumentation on this issue is of everyday nature, though: he says that a scientist possesses much knowledge and yet has no power. He uses similar arguments with respect to prestige. “Knowledge, eminence, skill and competence, although they may accompany it, have nothing intrinsically to do with power.” (р. 223) We will consider this.
Bierstedt next separates from power the concept influence. This is very important because in the theories of power espoused by scholars of international affairs it is influence which is adjoined closest to power; or, more exactly, the very definition of power is reduced to influence. In this connection he makes the following argument: Marx, for example, had an enormous influence on the 20th century, even though he was a man who had no power. “The Soviet dictator Stalin, on the other hand, was a man of power, but he had few if any influential ideas.” (p. 224) (Bierstedt evidently hasn’t read a single one of Stalin’s works.) Influence, Bierstedt thinks, does not require power because it is tied to ideas, doctrines or faith, and the place of its action is the ideological sphere. “Power attaches to a person, a group, or an association, and has its locus in the sociological sphere. Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, Shakespeare, Galileo, Newton, and Kant were men of influence, but none of them exercised any noticeable power. One need only compare Aristotle, for example, with his famous pupil, Alexander the Great. Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln were men of both power and influence. Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were men of power. Archimedes was a man of influence, but the soldier who slew him at the gates of Syracuse had more power.” (p. 224) When people speak of the power of ideas or say that ideas are weapons, those are mere metaphors, a language of images, whereas we, Bierstedt says, try to find a definition scientifically.
He can’t manage “scientifically,” though, as evidenced by his example featuring Archimedes. The idea appears to be this: a brainless but brawny soldier effortlessly murdered the supremely wise Archimedes, i.e. physical power is “stronger” than intellectual influence. This example can be exacerbated by saying that a perfectly brainless bear, gorilla or other such creature is also capable of killing Archimedes easily. However, Archimedes’ inventions were used to sink whole ships of the enemy; so we have a bit of discrepancy here.
The discrepancy is caused by the fact that the comparison is taken from a “dumb” series of the type: a crowbar is stronger than a computer; an ax is stronger than a braincase. The subject and the predicate here come from different phenomena; they don’t correspond. Power and influence, on the other hand, correspond very strongly, and the whole question is: what do we understand power to mean? If we mean muscular strength, then in some particular case there is indeed “power” behind it – dumb power. The discourse, however, is about the ontological force of generalized man, i.e. man in general. What is the power of such man? Bierstedt is unable to answer, as he is still rummaging in details; whereas Spinoza back in his time came very close to answering this question. He wrote: “Nay, inasmuch as human power is to be reckoned less by physical vigor than by mental strength, it follows that those men are most independent whose reason is strongest, and who are most guided thereby.”[29]
Like many other scholars, Bierstedt also separates power from dominance, believing that the former is a concept of sociology, while the latter is a phenomenon of psychology. Besides, power is a function of the resources of organizations and associations which belong to groups, including classes and the society as a whole. Dominance, though, is a function of the individual; these are different things.
These things may indeed be different, but they flow from the same source. Besides, tying of dominance to personality with its properties (temperament) would mean ignoring the system of interrelations between states or any social groups which are often built based on submission and dominance. Also, this form of submission has no relation to psychology; it is nourished by the objective laws of society and the world relations. Let us continue, though.
Bierstedt also separates power from the concept right, quoting examples to show that it is possible to have power and have no right, and the other way around. Once again, even though these are different spheres of society, they are interconnected much closer that the author thinks. Several centuries earlier that Spinoza had a much better understanding of these interconnections. He wrote in his Political Treatise:
For as God has a right to everything, and God's right is nothing else, but his very power, as far as the latter is considered to be absolutely free; it follows from this, that every natural thing has by nature as much right, as it has power to exist and operate;
And so by natural right I understand the very laws or rules of nature, in accordance with which everything takes place, in other words, the power of nature itself. And so the natural right of universal nature, and consequently of every individual thing, extends as far as its power:
…whatever anyone, be he learned or ignorant, attempts and does, he attempts and does by supreme natural right (since each has as much right as he has power).[30]
Having separated from power the concepts prestige, knowledge, influence, dominance and right, Bierstedt moves on to very important terms: strength, force and authority.
Strength is usually used to describe physical properties of man (strong muscles), therefore this term does not belong to sociology. With a considerable stretch, though, strength can be recognized as one of the forms of power, whereas its use is force. The latter is closer to our topic, and it is adjoined to authority.
Bierstedt writes: “Power is not force and power is not authority, but it is intimately related to both. … (1) power is latent force; (2) force is manifest power, and (3) authority is institutionalized power. The first two of these propositions may be considered together. They look like circular definitions and, as a matter of fact, they are. If an independent meaning can be found for one of these concepts, however, the other may be defined in terms of it and the circularity will disappear.” (р. 229)
Bierstedt himself is embarrassed by this “circularity,” which testifies to the fact that he did not study Hegel and other dialectician philosophers. There is nothing unusual about his definition, since the essence of something, power for example, can be manifested through something other, for example force. In physics, as the author himself mentions, many phenomena manifest themselves exactly through force which we observe, or through some effect-consequence, or through changes of motion.
The methodology of the definition is chosen correctly; the problem is in determining, on the one hand, how or through what force is manifested; and, on the other hand, why does power seek to manifest itself? Bierstedt’s subsequent specifications don’t answer this question, even though they state his initial intention more clearly. “Power is the ability to employ force, not its actual employment… Power is the ability to introduce force into a social situation; it is stance, not action; it is a presentation of the probability of force.” (p. 231) This is all correct, but what follows is not. “Unlike force, incidentally, power is always successful; when it is not successful it was not, or ceases to be, power.” (ibid.) A defeated army or a bankrupt company has no power. “Power is thus neither force nor authority but it makes both force and authority possible. Without power there would be no force and without power there would be no authority.” (ibid.)
This kind of reasoning is perfectly logical for a man who doesn’t know dialectics. Here the possibility is excluded for measuring the proportions between powers (greater-lesser); this power exists only as a “successful entity.” Bierstedt has a very important footnote where the definition of violence is given: “violence is uncontrolled force, undisciplined force.” (р. 230) The force which he has in mind is not of the institutionalized kind; he means violence in the form of students’ protests, torch-bearing mobs, etc. The actions of police, by contrast, are not violence but force, because those are actions of an organized force which represents the state. “Violence is force used not to maintain or to restore order, but to destroy. It thus has a moral connotation whereas the concepts of power, force, and authority are morally neutral.” (р. 231) We shall keep this in mind, too.
Thus, according to Bierstedt, power is some kind of original force which manifests itself as force and as authority. Power is manifested further in two forms: institutionalized as authority in the form of organizations, and non-institutionalized as power itself in informal organizations. Briefly put, “Power supports the fundamental order of society and the social organization within it. Power stands behind every association and sustains its structure.” (р. 235)
Power manifests itself in confrontations between similar groups and dissimilar ones. In the former case it is usually called competition, in the latter – conflict. “Power thus arises only in social opposition of some kind.” (р. 236) It is for a reason that the word “power” is often used with the adjective “potential”; it is always potential. When it does get used it becomes something else; it then appears in the form of force or in society in the form of authority. For example, money and credit represent financial power; when they are spent or otherwise put to use, they are transformed into property, which in turn becomes one of the sources of still greater power. Military power is its most fearsome function, because it transforms when necessary into force; this power determines the fate of nations. It is no accident that those nations which possess a mighty military potential are called “powers,” and those with the greatest military potential are called “superpowers.”
Now Bierstedt comes to the most important matter: the sources of power. They turn out to be three in number: 1) the number of people in society, especially of the majority; 2) organization; and 3) resources. Bierstedt attempts to prove that the power of the majority always exceeds the power of the minority. One gets the impression that he is not familiar either with Plato’s Republic where different types of authority are analyzed (timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny, republic) or with the practice of modern states where authority is in the hands of the minority, not the majority. Bierstedt does touch on the topic of organization as the correlation between the disorganized majority and the organized minority, and on the problems which arise in the struggle for authority, yet he believes optimistically that “An organized majority is the most powerful social force on earth.” (р. 239) What an optimist!
The third source is resources of various kinds: money, credit, property, knowledge, mastery, competence, cunning, quickness of wit, deceit, armaments and, of course, “natural resources” – such as iron and uranium which matter most in current historical circumstances (the work was written in 1950). All these constitute the arsenal of power.
This is a unique development: having started the analysis of the problem methodologically correctly, Bierstedt arrived at those banalities which scholars of international affairs keep chewing over without any use of sociology. In principle we never found out what power is; we learned only what it consists of and what its functions are – which Bierstedt repeats in the very end, just in case: “Power is a fundamental support of the social order on the one hand and a constant threat to than order on the other.” (р. 241) It appears in this case that the ultimate essence of power is maintenance or destruction of order.