Power a new social analysis

An early twenty-first century reader has obviously to allow for the fact that Power was written in the late 1930s in the age of the great dictators, Hitler and Stalin, as well as smaller fry, such as Mussolini and Franco, and appeared a month after the now notorious 1938 Munich Agreement. Indeed part of the fascination for the modern reader is to assess for himself or herself how much the world has changed and how much it has essentially remained the same.

Russell himself goes back much further for his examples. Predictably, he provides many examples of religion standing in the way of humane reform. In the sixth century BC, when Greek opinion was moving away from human sacrifice, the oracle of Delphi tried to retard this reform and keep alive the old traditions. Moving ahead in time, he readily accepts that men of impressive holiness—Hildebrand, St Bernard and St Francis—postponed the moral discredit that later befell the Roman Catholic Church. But an organization which has ideal ends, and therefore an excuse for love of power, is sure in the long run to produce only a superiority in unscrupulous ruthlessness.