"Might makes right" or "might is right" is anaphorism that asserts that having superior strength or power gives one the ability to control society and enforce one's own agenda, beliefs, concepts of justice, and so on.[1][2][3]Montague definedkratocracy orkraterocracy (from theAncient Greek:κράτος,romanized: krátos,lit. 'might; strength') as a government by those strong enough to seize control through violence ordeceit.[4]
"Might makes right" has been described as thecredo oftotalitarian regimes.[5] The sociologistMax Weber analyzed the relations between a state's power and its moral authority inWirtschaft und Gesellschaft.Realist scholars ofinternational politics use the phrase to describe the "state of nature" in which power determines the relations among sovereign states.[6]
The idea, though not the wording, has been attributed to theHistory of the Peloponnesian War, written around 410 BC by the ancient historianThucydides, who stated that "right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."[7]
In the first chapter of Plato'sRepublic, authored around 375 BCThrasymachus claims that "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger", whichSocrates then disputes.[8]Callicles inGorgias argues similarly that the strong should rule the weak, as a right owed to their superiority.[9]
TheBook of Wisdom, written around the first century BC to first century AD, describes the reasoning of the wicked: "Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless."[10]
The related idea of "woe to the conquered" is stated inLivy'sHistory of Rome, in which the similar Latin phrase "vae victis" is first recorded.[11][12]
An early instance of the phrase in English is found inThomas Carlyle's 1839 essayChartism: "Might and Right do differ frightfully from hour to hour; but give them centuries to try it in, they are found to be identical." He later clarified his position in a journal entry from 1848, saying that "right is the eternal symbol of might" rather than the reverse.[13]
In 1846, the Americanpacifist andabolitionistAdin Ballou (1803–1890) wrote, "But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes right,' and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies."[14]
Abraham Lincoln'sCooper Union speech (1860) famously reverses the phrase by stating: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it".[15][16]
Arthur Desmond authoredMight Is Right in 1896, which prompted criticism fromLeo Tolstoy.[17]
PhilosopherWilliam Pepperell Montague coined the termKratocracy, from theGreek:κρατερός (krateros), meaning "strong", for government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning.[4]
In a letter toAlbert Einstein from 1932,Sigmund Freud also explores the history and validity of "might versus right".[18]
Pope Francis observed that "immense inequality, injustice and acts of violence" have arisen from adoption of the principle of "might is right".[19]
Quotations related toMight makes right at Wikiquote