Exhibit 1216 ยท Essay (primary theory text)
The Power of the Powerless
Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power.
Essay on post-totalitarian Czechoslovakia. The greengrocer who displays a slogan he does not believe signals obedience; ideology lets him and the system conceal the real basis of that obedience.
- Source
- Vaclav Havel (translated by Paul Wilson; in John Keane (ed.), The Power of the Powerless, 1985)
- Date
- 1978
- Quoted from
- Section on the greengrocer, paragraph beginning "Let us take note"
- Grade
- Primary record
- Document
- https://worldhistorycommons.org/node/1122
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- Read in the World History Commons reproduction (excerpted translation). The greengrocer later "steps out of living within the lie." Written about the Soviet-bloc order, so use as an analogy for institutions in open societies, not as a description of them.