What follows is a sketch, written quickly, where probably to much of the argumentation is made by the adjectives:
The philistinism inherent in theories of 'Power'
1. Engels and Duhring on the 'Force Theory'
More than a century ago, Friedrich Engels had occasion to complain about the philistinism of what was then called 'The Force Theory of History', or would today be called the theory of Power. Engels was replying to the celebrated nincompoop Herr Duhring. (in Anti-Duhring, part two, chapters 2,3 and 4 cover the Force theory, from which the following quotes come).
For Engels the major problem with the Force theory was that it was tautological, leaving everything essentially unexplained:
"the question at issue is how we are to explain the origin of classes and relations based on domination, and if Herr Dühring's only answer is the one word "force," this leaves us exactly where we were at the start. The mere fact that the ruled and exploited class has at all times been far more numerous than the rulers and exploiters, and that therefore it is the former who have had the real force in their hands, is enough to demonstrate the absurdity of the whole force theory. The relationships based on domination and subjection have therefore still to be explained."
Similarly Engels complained that Duhring's phrase '"Property founded on force" proves here also to be nothing but the phrase of a braggart intended to cover up his lack of understanding of the real course of things.'
Engels parodied Duhring's argument thus
"when Robinson Crusoe made Friday his slave ... that was an act of force, hence a political act. And inasmuch as this enslavement was the starting-point and the basic fact underlying all past history and inoculated it with the original sin of injustice, so much so that in the later periods it was only softened down and "transformed into the more indirect forms of economic independence"; and inasmuch as "property founded on force" which has been maintained right through up to the present day, is likewise based on this original act of enslavement-for these reasons it is clear that all economic phenomena must be explained by political causes, that is, by force."
But, argues Engels, only "Herr Dühring could regard this view as so very "original," which it is not in the least. The idea that outstanding political acts and state actions are the decisive facts in history is as old as written history itself, and is the main reason why so little material has been preserved in regard to the really progressive evolution of the peoples which has taken place quietly in the background behind these noisy scenes on the stage."
Not only is the force theory unoriginal, lacking explanatory power and apologetic, it is also counter-revolutionary, argues Engels, because it elides the difference between the violence of the oppressed and the violence of the oppressor. This is a counsel against resistance, says Engels, fully anticipating the later trajectory of the theory of Power.
"For Herr Dühring force is the absolute evil; the first act of force is for him the original sin; his whole exposition is a jeremiad on the contamination, which this brought about, of all subsequent history by this original sin; ...That force, however, plays another role in history, a revolutionary role...of this there is not a word in Herr Dühring. It is only with sighs and groans that he admits the possibility that force will perhaps be necessary for the overthrow of the economic system of exploitation-unfortunately, because all use of force, forsooth, demoralises the person who uses it."
2. Duhring's successors
Engels view of the philistinism of the force theory are fully justified by its subsequent adoption by charlatans of all stripes. The theory of Power is such an obvious short-cut to real analysis, that it has been invented and re-invented by every faker going, right up to Foucault and Butler.
Take this load of old hogwash from Britain's ultimate intellectual fraud Bertrand Russell:
"Power: A New Social Analysis, London, 1938 ... It is only by realising that love of power is the cause of activities that are important in social affairs that history, whether ancient or modern, can be rightly interpreted.
... the fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense as energy is the fundamental concept in Physics. Like energy, power has many forms, such as wealth, armaments, civil authority, influence on opinion. No one of these can be regarded as subordinate to any other, and there is no one form from which all the others are derivative.
... the love of power is the chief motive producing the changes which social science has to study.'
And so the clap-trap dribbles on for page after page. I haven't bothered reproducing the many waspish statements against Marx that are really motivating Russell. But you get the point: Power explains everything, which is to say it explains nothing. Power explains all of history, which is to say that all history is collapsed into that one 'night in which all cows are Grey'. Needless to say the theory that unlocks the key to all human history was never heard of again from that compulsive writer, Russell, despite its spectacular explanatory powers.
The sheer banality of the theory of Power is so compelling that the banal reproduce it in all its unintelligent abstraction over and over. So for Talcott Parsons we should 'treat power as a specific mechanism operating to bring about changes in the action of other units, individual or collective, in the processes of social interaction.' (quoted in Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View, Macmillan, 1974, p 27. Parsons' bad conscience drives him to italicise that word 'specific', just in case you units out there in the processes of social interaction thought he was being a bit vague.)
3. Power in Foucault
Like the previous occupants of the Power theory, Foucault was motivated by a centrist desire to resist the authority of the revolutionaries. His critique of the 'repressive hypothesis' in volume one of the history of sexuality once again identifies the violence of the oppressed with that of the oppressor. Like Duhring, Foucault's theory of Power sees resistance as implicated in the same power-games as repression. This is how the Power/Force theory works. It is an abstraction that is entirely formal. It abstracts from the real differences between dominant and subjugated classes, eliding the differences between them. It is analysis on a par with the brilliant observation that both Hitler and Saddam Hussein have moustaches and uniforms.
-- Jim heartfield