Niccolo Machiavelli may help modern man to think more clearly about power and prudence, and to remember that the world is a dangerous place where all is not as it seems.
An argument can be made that Niccolo Machiavelli’s sinister reputation is unjust. This is not to gloss over the very deep flaws in the Florentine’s view of man, the world, and God, but to note that his work is not so devoid of moral sentiment as the popular image of him as a conniving super-villain suggests. Even his most infamous book The Prince provides us with evidence that Machiavellian politics might be an improvement over the crypto-socialism that has come to dominate much of the West. The prince “should inspire his citizens to follow their pursuits quietly, in trade and in agriculture and in every other pursuit of men, so that one person does not fear to adorn his possessions for fear that they be taken away from him, and another to open up a trade for fear of taxes.” Let it be noted that there is nothing here about reconstructing social relations, imposing egalitarian ideology, or confiscating income as part of a wealth redistribution plan.
More striking still, after relating how Agathocles of Sicily became ruler of Syracuse and enjoyed a long and successful career based upon brutality and treachery, Machiavelli cautions that “one cannot call it virtue to kill one’s citizens, betray one’s friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; these modes can enable one to acquire empire, but not glory.” Whatever The Prince’s flaws, it is glory, not mere empire, which motivates the book. Machiavelli commends not purely self-centered ambition, but Italy’s liberation from a state of foreign domination, “without a head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, pillaged, and having endured ruin of every sort.” The solution, he argues, is a leader single-mindedly committed to rescuing the troubled country: “One may see how she prays God to send her someone to redeem her from these barbarous cruelties and insults.” Interestingly enough, Machiavelli was especially fascinated by the figure of Moses, a man both celebrated for righteousness and indefatigability when it came to defending the good of his people.
And as surprising as it might be to those who know him only by his popular image, Machiavelli in fact favored democracy over monarchy: A corrupted people might be brought round by persuasion and skilled leadership, insists Machiavelli, whereas “a bad prince cannot be spoken to by anyone, and the only remedy for his case is cold steel.” Using reasoning instantly comprehensible to modern-day localists and proponents of states’ rights, he advises rulers to occupy troubled provinces in person, instead of trying to direct them from a distant position of comfortable detachment:
For if you stay there, disorders may be seen as they arise, and you can soon remedy them; if you are not there, disorders become understood when they are great and there is no longer a remedy. Besides this, the province is not despoiled by your officials; the subjects are satisfied with ready access to the prince, so that they have more cause to love him if they want to be good and, if they want to be otherwise, more cause to fear him.
Machiavelli deserves credit for such statements, insofar as they call attention to inherent flaws in the American system. How can anyone take seriously the claim that Olympian elites secluded within the District of Columbia meaningfully represent a “republic” comprised of more than 300 million “citizens” inhabiting an enormous diversity of communities spread out over three million square miles? As Donald Livingston of Emory has pointed out, the inhuman scale of the United States is utterly foreign to all republican theory, whether ancient or modern, Platonic, Jeffersonian, or Machiavellian, and it is simply absurd to pretend that those of us in Flyover Country can ever enjoy “ready access” to the Beltway officials and powerbrokers who have turned the democratic process into a rigged game. If conservatives are to make good use of the Trump effect, they must resist the temptation to “federalize” everything and instead work to restore authority to state and local institutions, so that “disorders may be seen as they arise” by those holding power.
None of this is meant to suggest that Machiavelli should be unconditionally celebrated. Perhaps the biggest problem with The Prince lies not in its emphasis upon the adversarial aspect of political life–an undeniable reality, especially now–but in the idea that it represents a new political “science,” a precise, tidy, and reliably predictive discipline equivalent to mechanical engineering or chemistry. For a better picture of reality, an equally hard-headed but philosophically deeper authority should be consulted. Politics is a very human and messy art rather than a science, explains Aristotle: “For the educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the nature of the subject allows, for apparently it is just as mistaken to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician as to accept [merely] persuasive arguments from a mathematician.” When it comes to complex studies of man, we must be satisfied “to indicate the truth roughly and in outline.”
So if taken with a grain of salt, Machiavelli may help modern man to think more clearly about power and prudence, and to remember that the world is a dangerous place where all is not as it seems. At the same time, political schemes always must be restrained by a respect for God’s laws–and informed by common sense. Otherwise, we may find ourselves looking less like the Godfather than like Wile E. Coyote.
This essay was first published here in March 2017.
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It’s helpful to read Discourses on Livy simultaneously. Then, we see the republican sentiments of Mach which makes it all go down a bit easier. Also, the amazing essay by Isaiah Berlin on Mach is always worth reading. He explains how there is pretty well a before Mach world, and an after Mach world…I suppose he is the first true modernist when it comes to politics.
A very thought-provoking piece. Niccolo offered the world some eye-opening observations about how the world really operates, and was damned for it. I agree his works are worth a fresh look.
James Burnham’s “The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom” made a fairly strong case that Machiavelli was unfairly maligned.
I’ve read “The Managerial Revolution” and “Suicide of the West.” I did not know of the existence of “The Machiavellians.” Will read it ASAP. Thanks for the tip.
Machiavelli is wonderful. He’s taught in business schools, along with Sun Zhu.
One good quote: “because he did not mix it (Popular state) with the power of the Principate and with that of the Aristocracy, Athens lived a very short time as compared to Sparta. ”
Another: “The discussion is either of a Republic which wants to create an Empire, as Rome, or of one which is satisfied to maintain itself. In the first case it is necessary for it to do everything as Rome did; in the second, it can imitate Venice and Sparta, for those reasons why and how as will be described in the succeeding chapter.”
And I choose Venice, Sparta: the ideal of a polity built to endure, not to commit suicide as the entire West desires today.
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Regarding “crypto-socialism”:
I’m a longtime believer that socialism is a component of a natural reaction to wealth inequality. As such this is a natural law of political science, that wealth inequality leads to instability. And those defenders of the West who defend wealth inequality are then partly responsible for socialism’s popularity, stoking the fire.
Machiavelli writes in Discources that part of Sparta’s durability is the result of “more
equality of substance”:
“Sparta, as I have said, being governed by a King and limited Senate could thus maintain
itself for a long time because there being few inhabitants in Sparta, and the path having
been closed to those who should want to live there, and the laws of Lycurgus having
acquired such reputation that their observance removed all the causes for tumults. They
were able to live united for a long time, for Lycurgus had established in Sparta more
equality of substance and less equality in rank, because equal poverty existed here and
the Plebs were lacking ambitious men, as the offices of the City were extended to few
Citizens, and were kept distant from the Plebs, nor did the Nobles by not treating them
badly ever create in them the desire to want them.”
Here’s another, more lengthy, quote: “The other cause, is that that
Republic, whose political existence is maintained uncorrupted, does not permit that any
of its Citizens to be or live in the manner of a Gentleman, instead maintain among
themselves a perfect equality, and are the greatest enemies of those Lords and Gentlemen
who are in that province: and if, by chance, any should come into their hands, they kill
them as being Princes of corruption and the cause of every trouble.
And to clarify what is (meant by) this name of Gentleman, I say that those are called
Gentlemen who live idly on the provisions of their abundant possessions, without having
any care either to cultivate or to do any other work in order to live. Such as these are
pernicious to every Republic and to every Province: but more pernicious are those who,
in addition to the above mentioned fortune, also command castles, and have subjects who
obey them.”
I’m finding these quotes quickly, so there are likely better quotes to use.
Thanks for publishing my comment. I would recommend Machiavelli be read with Burnham as suggested above but also with Aristotle and actually other history books/political books based on lessons from history.
Machiavelli is fallible, but I love his pursuit of truth, truth be it pleasant or less so. He forces the reader to think. The reader may then choose to pursue what’s right after understanding his options and their consequences.
To give an example, Putin is often today condemned, yet his power is secure. We can conclude Putin understands something of political science. Because Putin is in power, he can then choose to serve his people and Christ. Note: Putin is not publicly a Christian, though his wife was; but he is a man in a secure position of power.
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It is possible that some truth should not be learned, that a social organism is healthiest when kept ignorant of certain things. However, we do not live in an isolated society, so we must compete with fallen powers. Too often we blame political opponents rather than asking how we could improve. For example, Marxists are blamed.
Also, power itself is corrupting, including political power. The wealthy struggle to get into Heaven, as we know. So, it could risk one’s soul to pursue legitimate political science, which deals with these very fallen men. So, that risk must be acknowledged.
It’s like with Rudyard Kipling’s “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”: There are timeless truths which the West is today in violation of, hence its decline.
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Just to add a disclaimer: I do not appreciate Nietzsche. So, I’m not some lover of evil. I love many of the conservative writers praised at this website, though not the classical liberal ones.
I expect there are good arguments against Machiavelli. I just loved him, however.
“How can anyone take seriously the claim that Olympian elites secluded within 5he District of Columbia meaningfully represent a ‘republic'”………..Indeed, and it has only gotten exponentially worse since this article was first published here in the bumptious but relatively buoyant days of 2017.
I synthetize an Italian literary critic and historian of literature, of Catholic inspiration, Rocco Montano (+1999).
Machiavelli saw only the side of strength in the political world; he didn’t realize the truest foundation of the state, he ignored the popular soul, the enormous weight that are disclosed in every society by the judgment of the good, the moral traditions, religions, and the sense of justice. He believed to follow the “actual reality” of the policy and he missed the substance of it, namely, the fact that societies are based on certain currents of opinion, and on fundamental concepts of right and good, and that there are infinite threads that bind the governed to a ruler and that there is the weight of the past, and the hope of the future.
Machiavelli saw only the beginning of the conquest of power, the most deceitful; he gave a more one-sided, less realistic view of the game of politics. Italian critics – and, among them, Croce and Gramsci, along with all the post-WWII’s critics – did not notice these fundamental limits of Machiavelli’s thought. They continued to refer to him as the discoverer and the most authentic exponent of the political “science”, as of the master of realism, as the irrefutable assertor of autonomy of politics with respect to morals.
It has not been known or wanted seen that the prince can on behalf of him set aside each moral or religious scruple and believe that the politics is a jungle, an arena in which if Caesar does not kill Brutus, Brutus will kill Caesar.
In a real society, conversely, it is necessary to take into account of what makes any action acceptable to most; it is also necessary to evaluate whether the recourse to action is legitimate or justified. The right choices are the ones most likely to be accepted and followed. Moral judgments are antecedent. Men don’t just look after mere self-interest. Nor if the prince doesn’t touch their purse everything is OK. They revolt against injustice, immorality. They fight for freedom, for what they call homeland, religion. They sacrifice life for things that have more than material involvement. Society is not an association of interests, but a union of people who believe in certain principles and want to implement them.
Political writers of the 16th century are invariably divided into two ranks: the moralists and the realists, i.e. the Machiavellian. Certainly, the portrait that Tacitus gives of Tiberius reveals a master of cruelty, cunning, political prowess, deceit and respect to whom Caesar Borgia, which Machiavelli had presented as “imitable”, as a model of the prince, appears like a rough novice.
Counter-Reformation theorists (i.e., St. Roberto Bellarmino) saw, in the Annals, the whole gamut of cunning, iniquitous or not, practiced by Augustus and Tiberius. They knew that in many cases even cruelty, force, and deceit are necessary. But they were far from denying moral principles in politics.
Counter-Reformation’s scholars knew that the prince who violates beliefs, principles, feelings, popular conscience is not only blameworthy compared to the norm religious but demonstrates yet political ineptitude.
But one can find the true overcoming of Machiavelli only in Giambattista Vico. He understands what it is really the state; that is, it is not an association dictated by interest, or, much less, the arena of which Machiavelli speaks – including the cunning, the violent, the unscrupulous men.
Vico states plainly, irrefutably, that in life politics operate and temper, in a dualist manner, material needs and sense of right and religion which, albeit in various ways darkened, are found in every man.
There is neither the pure force, nor the agreement of the interests as one finds in Locke. Unavoidable and fundamental is expressed the sense of law. Above all the issues, there is Providence, the same that sustains the living organism against the dissolution forces, and ensuring the perennity of species.
There are of course always, together, coexistent, the useful and the right. Vico calls, “Epicureans” those who, like Machiavelli and such natural law scholars, such as Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza and, we might add, Marx.
They talk about politics as the result of agreements, clashes of forces, and interests.
It was believed that the line of thought that develops from Lutheranism and Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, which places a total separation between the political sphere and the ethical-religious dimension, was the “modern” line, the only valid one.
It is preferred ignore that the basis of Luther’s thoughts, of Calvin and all Protestant thinkers (excluding the Anabaptists, against whom Luther unleashed the fiercest war and who totally denied state) is the principle that the rulers, however they are, they are “ministers of God”.
But the thing certainly more important is that, also, this political conception – that one developed after Protestantism and implying a total separation between the sphere of interests, of force, of politics, or of what Marx would call the “structure” and the “religious sphere” – goes against the reality of human nature, which is a unity of spirit and matter, and is very often very far from guaranteeing moral autonomy of the individual, respect for justice and protection of the common good.
The political majorities formed may have no respect for religion, or individual life. When you believe, as the communists do, that economic interests, and social plans are what matters, it occurs then fatally that other rights, of the person, or of the family, or moral life are ignored and trample yourself. The liberal state of Locke and the French Revolution has no strength against fascist or Nazi majorities or the Stalinists one; nor does it have any moral principles with which oppose the advance of aberrant ideologies. Vico foresaw accurately that the naturalistic state is the Enlightenment’s state, like the Machiavellian one, leads inevitably to denial of God, and draws everything in materialism, killing the true forces of society.
A review of this process of political thought – enlightening the gross deficiencies of Machiavellianism and of the enlightened, liberal, secular state, founded on pure relationships of interest, and on a mere regularization of factors, say, social, but that are, in truth, only economic factors, modes of production – should also involve discussing our positions.
There is no standard math to show where the reason lies. Even those who make the biggest historical deformation can claim to be objective. In the case present I think the facts are enough evident. I certainly didn’t mean to state a creed, nor was I bothered about the label of progressive or reactionary that they could apply to me. I think it already is much if in our studies we advance by a little knowledge of the facts without presuming to make us standard-bearers or reduce ourselves to party officials.
Thanks as usual for the hospitality!