What is Power?

Power has a variety of different aspects. This is because power can be shown in so many ways. All of these aspects play a significant role in determining how powerful someone or something is. Throughout time, many people and ideas have shown power in three main ways: control, influence, and fear.

The first aspect of globalization is fear. One way Stalin stayed in power as long as he did was because of how afraid people were of him. Many dictators stay in power because of how feared they are. In Africa during the times imperialism, the Europeans remained in power because of their physical strength (better guns and weapons) as well as the fear they maintained the the people that lived there. Even in the industrial revolution, Carnegie had power because too many people were afraid of him being such a tough competitor. As you can see, fear is a major part of what power means.

Another important aspect of power is influence. The British during the times of imperialism were very powerful because of how influential they were around the world. The United States is powerful because of how influential they are around the world too. They have a lot of financial power because of how important the dollar is in the stock market. During the cold war, the USSR and the USA had influence around the world. The USSR had influence on the communist countries while the United States had influence on the capitalist countries, particularly those in Western Europe. The final example, again, is how globalization influences how we live our lives. Its influence adds to how it controls our lives.

The final aspect of power is control. Many powerful people have shown this trait. In Africa, the Europeans had much control over the people there through imperialism. They showed this by forcing the local people into slavery and by forcing those people to provide them with resources. Another example from this year was Andrew Carnegie. He had power because of how much control he had over the steel industry in the United States. A third example of control that we learned about this year was Stalin. Along with other aspects of power, Stalin had an enormous amount of control over the Russian people through other aspects of power such as fear and influence. The final example of control that we have learned about this year is globalization. Globalization has an enormous amount of control over how we live our lives nowadays. Through globalization, we can now eat foods from around the world in just one place. The internet in particular has managed to control how we get information and how we communicate. As you can see, control has been a major aspect of power for hundreds of years.

Power has many meanings. Power can also be shown in a lot of ways. The three main aspects are control, influence, and fear. These are the aspects of power that have been shown for hundreds of years. Because of the number of ways it can be shown, there is no one meaning of power. However, it is these three things that really make up what power is.