The Power of the Powerless
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Power of the Powerless
| Author | Václav Havel |
|---|---|
| Published | 1978 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Václav Havel’s essay on how a late-communist state holds together: a greengrocer puts the official slogan in his window not from belief but because that is what one does, so the system runs on millions of acts of going along — against which Havel sets “living in truth.” How ideology survives after nobody believes it, by a playwright who then governed the country he described. |
The Power of the Powerless
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in Marxism and Collective Psychology as the view from inside. Shared March 2026; full transcription on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
Not a book but an essay, written in October 1978 and circulated in samizdat; in English it is usually read inside a collection.
Connections
- Václav Havel — the author.
- Totalitarianism — the system the essay anatomises.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the list this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.