 |
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Bertrand Russell |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Social philosophy |
| Publisher | Allen & Unwin |
Publication date | 1938 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 328 |
Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell (1st imp. London 1938, Allen & Unwin, 328 pp.) is a work in social philosophy written by Bertrand Russell. Power, for Russell, is one's ability to achieve goals. In particular, Russell has in mind social power, that is, power over people.[1]
The volume contains a number of arguments. However, four themes have a central role in the overall work. The first theme given treatment in the analysis is that the lust for power is a part of human nature. Second, the work emphasises that there are different forms of social power, and that these forms are substantially interrelated. Third, Power insists that "organisations are usually connected with certain kinds of individuals". Finally, the work ends by arguing that "arbitrary rulership can and should be subdued".
Throughout the work, Russell's ambition is to develop a new method of conceiving the social sciences as a whole. For him, all topics in the social sciences are merely examinations of the different forms of power – chiefly the economic, military, cultural, and civil forms (Russell 1938:4).[2] Eventually, he hoped that social science would be robust enough to capture the "laws of social dynamics", which would describe how and when one form of power changes into another. (Russell 1938:4–6) As a secondary goal of the work, Russell is at pains to reject single-cause accounts of social power, such as the economic determinism he attributes to Karl Marx. (Russell 1938:4, 95)[3]
- ^ Nevertheless, he recognizes that it is sensible to speak of power over things as well as over people. For example, modern industrial technology improves a person's ability to deal with a wide variety of materials. (Russell 1938:20)
- ^ This four-part formulation of social power bears some similarity to the AGIL Paradigm of sociologist Talcott Parsons.
- ^ However, this attribution is highly controversial among Marx scholars. See, for example: (Hodges, 1980).