‘Might is Right’ is the description of power as fact, and that power as fact triumphs over justice and what might actually be Right. It’s the brutal reality of power, and sometimes also the normative justifications that attempt to legitimise and perpetuate such a situation.
An easy example is the school bully who beats up weaker kids for fun, or takes their lunch money: the bully simply does. There can be moral appeals, of course, pleas from those whose fate in that moment is to suffer or from those who don’t just stand by. There can also be social pressure used against the bully, which is a different sort of power to challenge their physicality.
In that example the bully makes no claim to justice — this is just might and the reality that they can do as they wish. And it’s fairly widely accepted that a bully beating someone up or take lunch money is not okay. But there are many other situations in which might is right is the norm or prevailing ideology…
‘Finders keepers’ isn’t just a schoolboy saying — it’s the legal reality of original ownership. Everything in the world is (by default) an object without legal status, and the first person to take possession of it becomes the legal owner and has absolute control over the thing. This is true whether it’s a rock in the desert, a wild animal, or some land. The legal doctrine of ‘terra nullius’ was this, that land is unowned until someone owns it, and this was used to legally ossify settler-colonialism. The fact of military power became the legal situation, perpetually protected by legal institutions.
Normative arguments were (and continue to be) made to justify colonialism, claiming that might is right, that the brutal power was just. Colonialism was justified as a civilising mission, that the savages would be better off with a more advanced ruler, that this is actually the white man’s burden to have a moral calling to improve the lives of lesser peoples. Sometimes, this wasn’t even bothered with, and the court would just say, ‘well, the people who have lived here for hundreds of years cannot technically own this land, so you can have it’.
This isn’t confined to the past; it continues in the present moment. For example, in many places in Africa, updated versions of Terra Nullius are applied to remove people from their land as part of imposing western legal systems, usually as part of a western Development model, linked to aid funding or a world Bank loan, or even justified through arguments about Human Rights and ensuring that the right to property is part of the legal system. Incidentally, those who do not have the new imposed form of ownership are dispossessed.
International Law is also a situation in which Might is Right. There is not really an objective legal system or independent power, it is power not justice that governs. International Law is just the powerful using another tool to crush the weak. If those with power don’t like you, they can sanction you, bomb countries, bring about regime change or simply invade. Yet those with power are not held accountable for their crimes, for wars they start or support, democracies they trample over or people they kill. UN Resolutions can only be passed if the 5 permanent members on the Security Council do not veto them, and international courts only prosecute if the country gives them permission to. The injustices are there for all to see, in the internet age, but government narratives and established media usually cover it up, making the arguments that this might is right, or sometimes simply ignore it.
Physical force, the power of the bully, of the police, of the militarised nation-state, is not the only type of power. Wealth is also a type of power.
Looking at how resources are allocated in the market, it is stating the obvious to point out that rich people can buy things and poor people can’t. Resource allocation is about who has money. In food shortages, rich people get fed, poor people don’t. In normal times, poor people don’t eat, whether that’s in the UK or globally. Thankfully, at least the market exchange is not the only source of food: limited state benefits give some people some food, and food banks powered by donations and distributed by need are another. But this market allocation is the fundamental.
Morality and philosophy are traditionally left out of economics, which carves out a separate domain. We are talking about markets, not justice. This is, of course, wrong: they cannot be separated, and economics is about power and justice. At the same time, economics makes ideological and normative justifications — despite claiming to not be about such things — to say that a system based on spending might is right. It is defended as natural, as the best system overall even if there are incidentally situations in which people are left behind, that the efficiency and efficacy of the whole system justifies it.
Homelessness and housing conditions is an example. It is not caused by an abstract shortage of housing but by the function of a capitalist market and the choice to place the allocation of who has a home (and what type of home) primarily to capitalist market exchange. The housing “crisis” is the nature of property-as-exclusion combined with a system in which money is needed to buy. Housing supply is that only profitable houses get built, and housing as a business venture means that landlords who want to own the property and convert the need for a home into a profitable commodity are in direct competition with people who want to own homes.
It might not be based on the physical power of a bully, but capitalist market exchange is still a fundamental situation of ‘might is right’.
Vaccine supply is another current example. The UK (and USA and EU and others) pay for vaccines upfront, funding their development and paying for the lion’s share of doses. Poorer countries are, generally, without. There are two parts to this: the allocation of existing vaccines based on who can pay; and the system of “intellectual property”. These are both situations of might is right, with arguments made that it is only fair that the UK gets lots of vaccines because we paid for them and therefore deserve it, and that vaccines wouldn’t be developed if it wasn’t a profitable business venture, relegating helping humanity to something that happens incidentally to someone (or a corporate structure) wanting to increase the wealth available to them. People show their true colours when forced to defend against the idea that the vaccine recipes should be public knowledge for anyone in the world to make, or that vaccine rollout should be about justice instead of nationalism.
Ultimately, I believe that justice and democracy are more important than the factual reality of power. It isn’t right for bullies to beat people up because they can, nor for rich people to have mansions, luxury food and vaccines while poor people have none. I believe in a better world where distribution happens in a more just way, and democratic processes and people working together can decide better what to do than the invisible hands of market exchange.