Power, Philosophy, and Pints: An Evening at the Lower Red Lion

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There is a particular kind of magic that happens when you gather a group of people in a pub to discuss big ideas. The setting is unpretentious. The drinks are real. The conversation, however, can soar. Last Tuesday evening, twenty-plus members of Philosophy at the Lower Red Lion gathered in a room of that venerable Fishpool Street establishment to tackle one of the most enduring and contested questions in political thought: What is power?

The session was framed by the proposition that power is not an abstract ideal but a practical reality that shapes every human relationship, from the family to the state, from the workplace to the international arena. Philosophers, we noted, tend to agree on a basic definition: power is the capacity to produce effects: to make things happen, to overcome resistance, to shape the behaviour of others, to determine outcomes. But beyond that, the disagreements run deep.

The conversation ranged widely, as it always does, and touched on some of the great traditions of political thought. The classical tradition, from Plato and Aristotle through to Hobbes and Locke, was explored as a framework for understanding power primarily in terms of legitimate authority and the right to rule. Plato's philosopher-kings, Aristotle's distinction between good and corrupt forms of government, Hobbes's dark vision of the state of nature, and Locke's insistence on the consent of the governed (the reiteration of Rousseau’s ‘social contract’) all came under scrutiny.

It was observed that these thinkers, for all their differences, share a common assumption: that power is something that should be concentrated, that hierarchy is natural, and that sovereignty is the solution to the problem of disorder. That assumption, however, did not go unchallenged. They recognised that these are not universal truths but particular cultural imaginings: power is not organised in the same way across all human communities. Some societies actively resist the centralisation of power altogether. That challenges the implicit assumption running through the classical tradition that hierarchy and sovereign authority are natural or inevitable features of political life.

The discussion had to include Niccolò Machiavelli, the great realist. In The Prince, Machiavelli separates power from morality. The effective ruler must be willing to be cruel, deceitful, and ruthless when necessary. Power is not about justice or consent; it is about maintaining control. It was noted that Machiavelli's question is not who should rule? but how does a ruler stay in power? 

Reciprocity is also seen as a way of managing power. The big-man societies of Melanesia accumulate influence not by hoarding resources but by giving them away. This is an inversion of the Hobbesian and Machiavellian model entirely, and a reminder that the realist tradition, however penetrating, reflects a particular cultural imagination of what power looks like.

An animated part of the evening came when the group turned to Michel Foucault. For Foucault, power is not something possessed by individuals or institutions. It is not simply top-down and repressive. Instead, power is ‘productive’ and ‘everywhere’. Foucault argued that power operates through discourses, practices, and social norms that shape what we think of as normal, true, and even desirable. Foucault analysed how prisons, schools, hospitals, and asylums do not merely constrain people but manage people subjects, creating disciplined minds (as opposed to anarchy) and compliant citizens. Power works not mainly through violence or law, but through knowledge, surveillance, and normalisation. For Foucault, even our sense of who we are, our identities, desires, and values, is shaped by power relations. This view could be seen as unsettling because it suggests that there is no pure, power-free position from which to critique power. We are always already within its web.

Patriarchy was briefly mentioned as a way power is embedded in social structures that systematically privilege some groups and disadvantage others. There is a view that power operates through patriarchy, racism, colonialism, and capitalism, which is a counterbalance to Foucault’s focus on the conscious actions of individuals.

Towards the end of the evening, the discussion didn’t provide a clear summary, but we could say that power is the capacity to produce effects, in order to shape outcomes, to overcome resistance, to define reality..Philosophical discussions, however, never end with a neat conclusion. As always, our conversations are not merely an academic exercise. The question of power shapes every political debate, every organisational decision, every social movement, and every personal relationship. To ask it is to ask who gets to decide, who benefits, and who is silenced. And that, perhaps, is why the members of Philosophy at the Lower Red Lion keep coming back to these questions, pint in hand.