Power: Absolute Sovereignty In The Nineteenth Century

Power – here defined as the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others of courses of events – is relative. The forms that it takes and the way in which it is exercised has been constantly shifting and altering for centuries. This essay will focus particularly on forms of state power and the use of violence since the fall of feudalism and the prevalence of absolute sovereignty in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the process of modernity through to the present post-9/11 age. Over history, power has dispersed and become less evident; from being centralised in sole sovereigns with unlimited power over subjects, the bureaucratisation and democratisation of states and spread liberal concepts of freedom and

Here, the king was appointed by divine right and had executive, legislative, and judicial powers solely vested in him, while the working and peasant classes were ruthlessly exploited and taxed by the crown and nobility. In association with the church, the sovereign controlled every aspect of the lives of the proletariat. By wielding such power and control over their lives, the sovereign created an ideology and false consciousness that conflicts with contractualists such as Locke, who claim that consent by the populace is needed for legitimate government. If the ideology perpetuated by the sovereign and the church provides only one point of view that is widely accepted by the proletariat, therefore creating a false consciousness and ideology that perpetuates the superiority of absolute monarchies and states, then there is little opportunity for the proletariat to give actual consent to this form of government, provided with no other option. Consent to power was similarly illegitimate because of the threat of violence posed by the absolute pre-modern sovereign. Power was far more evident and blatant, clearly demonstrated in the treatment of bodies under these monarchs. Before the seventeenth century, public torture was used as to demonstrate the power of the sovereign, with no mediator between sovereign and subject. The power relationship could be blatantly direct – the sovereign could touch and enact violence on the subject, with no regulation or restriction. Arendt argues that violence is a sign of diminished power and is inherently instrumental; in pre-modernity, though the use of violence may have masked the unsteady foundation of divine-right sovereignty, it was a tool that both showcased the power of the sovereign and forced consent