"Power of the Powerless" by Vaclav Havel

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews "Power of the Powerless", the essay written by the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel. According to this paper, Havel views power as more than just the authority to govern or rule, and illustrates the personal, social and existential dimensions of power that governments wield over the people.

From the Paper:

"Although the American government does not formally own the means of production as the Soviets did, governmental officials do indirectly control economic organizations through their corporate interests. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney is intimately tied with Halliburton, and the Bush family has its hands in numerous major economic powerhouse corporations including oil companies. Furthermore, Havel refers to consumerism in "Power of the Powerless" to illustrate the stranglehold of the consumer ideology over modern society. In the United States, the capitalist regime has become "almost a secularized religion. It of fears a ready answer to any question whatsoever; it can scarcely be accepted only in part." (II). That consumerism is a religion can be seen easily in the way people fetishize money and material goods, how people focus their time and energy on shopping, and how people value material goods often more than they value spiritual ideals. Havel notes that communism was also a lap dog of capitalism, just "another form of the consumer and industrial society, with all its concomitant social, intellectual, and psychological consequences. It is impossible to understand the nature of power in our system properly without taking this into account." (II). Therefore, power, for Havel, incorporates not only formal and legitimated forms of political control but also more subtle forms of mental manipulation."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Havel, Vaclav. "The Power of the Powerless" Retrieved online Dec. 12, 2005 from http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/index.php?sec=2&id=1&setln=2&PHPSESSID=88619f2c022bd69e8d6f2b6065827c94#

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