Psychoanalysis and Politics

I take it that my task this afternoon, among other things, is to summarize various hints about psychoanalysis and politics, some of which have been given by the preceding speakers. Let me make clear from the outset that I do not use the term “politics” as a means of referring to government officials only. Politics is decision-making. Decisions are choices backed by coercion. Such choices may be made by government officials, but they may also be made by trade union officials, or by officers of larger corporations. Often the forms of authority conceal the facts of control, as when a judgment nominally made by a public servant is actually dictated by a campaign contributor or a pressure-group leader. In the modern language of political science, I identify politics with the choice, by whomsoever made, that is supported by the most severe deprivations available to the community. Usually these deprivations are violence (or another form of coercion). Politics (or power) is decision-making.

If the distinctive domain of politics is power, it becomes evident how psychoanalysis can contribute to politics. From psychoanalysis we can learn something about the conditions under which individuals aspire to the exercise of power over others. Furthermore, we are enabled to investigate the situations in which groups of men seek to impose themselves coercively upon other groups. In short, psychoanalysis gives us one of the most refined instruments at the disposal of modern science for identifying those individuals who love power and for determining when they resort to its use.

Let us go further and apply this to the outstanding questions of public policy before us today and tomorrow. You and I represent carriers of a great liberal democratic tradition. Those of us who share in this great tradition of Western European civilization desire to achieve a society in which human dignity is reflected in practice as well as in theory. This means that our great problem is so to organize power that