Is power bad by nature? Is it always in the wrong hands? No. This is the answer given by the political classics of Modern Age, Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. Machiavelli distrusts the ancient promises of good regime and human virtue. He bases political power on the productivity of the evil. Despite sharing Machiavelli's profound anthropological pessimism, Hobbes relies on the virtue of the sovereign: the Leviathan does away with perpetual war. In the 20th century the philosophical apologia for power assumes a different shape. Hannah Arendt separates instrumental violence from communicative power, turning the agora into the magic place of power. Contrary to that, Michel Foucault denies the existence of any privileged place of power. For him, power becomes a network of social relationships ambiguously combining subjection and creativity.
power; violence; legitimacy; political anthropology; knowledge; virtue