On this day in 1469, the Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born. A lifelong patriot and diehard proponent of a unified Italy, Machiavelli became one of the fathers of modern political theory.
Machiavelli entered the political service of his native Florence by the time he was 29. As defense secretary, he distinguished himself by executing policies that strengthened Florence politically. He soon found himself assigned diplomatic missions for his principality, through which he met such luminaries as Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and perhaps most importantly for Machiavelli, a prince of the Papal States named Cesare Borgia. The shrewd and cunning Borgia later inspired the title character in Machiavelli’s famous and influential political treatise The Prince (1532).
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Machiavelli’s political life took a downward turn after 1512, when he fell out of favor with the powerful Medici family. He was accused of conspiracy, imprisoned, tortured and temporarily exiled. It was an attempt to regain a political post and the Medici family’s good favor that Machiavelli penned The Prince, which was to become his most well-known work.
Though released in book form posthumously in 1532, The Prince was first published as a pamphlet in 1513. In it, Machiavelli outlined his vision of an ideal leader: an amoral, calculating tyrant for whom the end justifies the means. The Prince not only failed to win the Medici family’s favor, it also alienated him from the Florentine people. Machiavelli was never truly welcomed back into politics, and when the Florentine Republic was reestablished in 1527, Machiavelli was an object of great suspicion. He died later that year, embittered and shut out from the Florentine society to which he had devoted his life.
Though Machiavelli has long been associated with the practice of diabolical expediency in the realm of politics that was made famous in The Prince, his actual views were not so extreme. In fact, in such longer and more detailed writings as Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (1517) and History of Florence (1525), he shows himself to be a more principled political moralist. Still, even today, the term “Machiavellian” is used to describe an action undertaken for gain without regard for right or wrong.
His main thesis was that politicians should treat common folk like cattle. They should lie, cheat and practice any form of chicanery in pursuit of political objectives and, as long as you could get away with it, prosper thereby. Morality has no place in political calculation which is why the lust for political power is the scourge of mankind. It means that government via ruling class is inherently evil. There is no amount of ‘civic action’ or the selection of the lesser of 2 evils that can ever cleanse the process. Ever. It was true 500 years ago and it will be true for as long as we practice the human plague that is democrazy.
Vote, my ass.
That is not really true, though the “Cliff Notes” version that the ruling elites use basically says that. He basically says to leave commoners alone, not jail them or steal from them or rape their daughters. If you leave commoners alone to prosper, they will, and they will fight for their ‘leader’ when the time comes. If you do despoil them, then you will have to rely on mercenaries for protection, who are bunch of tough guys, except when the going gets tough, and they will run away without hesitation. A small lesson that is routinely discarded by the ruling elite.
Of course, he does say a prince has to do a lot of bad stuff to gain the upper hand with other princes and other competitors, but the prince should always have the appearance of staying above it all.
Basically, kind of a worthless book because its cliff notes version is the only one the ruling elites will ever follow: lie, cheat, murder, and steal. It’s kind of like ‘the theory of anal sex’. What would be the point of such a book? No one who is going to ‘do it’, is going to pay attention to the subtler points, because of the nature of what they’re involved in. The only people who would understand such a book are the people who are not ‘doing it.’
Perhaps you are right CC, but that doesn’t help much. Saying that this, what do you call it, democracy, thing is not working out is fine, but obvious. The real problem is in finding a viable alternative. What ever that alternative might be it most surely will involve voting of some kind. The question is, of what kind? Give some thought to alternatives.
More biting, less barking.
What doesn’t help much is being duped by a corrupt system century after century and expecting salvation. I cite rule BY A RULING CLASS as inherent evil. How about rule by voluntary consensus? Isn’t that how we all conduct ourselves every day of our lives?
Try this:
But can you cite examples where there was not a ruling class to do the ruling?
And what type of social and cultural conditions did they end up living in?
To my knowledge there has never been a notable era where free choice ruled instead of top down, societal management by force. It’s sort of like saying when was there a time when the strong didn’t prey on the weak. In the case of democrazy the strong are in charge of the weak-like in the u.s. I imagine a truly just, bottom up, voluntary society will only be possible when enough bright people get fucked over so bad that a radical thought-like being your own savior and sole provider-is no longer a frightening concept. It will take some extraordinary cataclysm to do that-as the evil of democrazy has been pounded into us from birth and reinforced by those who profit from it on every occasion. Obviously the ruling elite’s brutal fucking of us in the TARP scam didn’t do it. Neither will the failed administration of the Orange Crusader. I don’t know what triggering event will do it but it’s gonna be an Armageddon like shit storm. Only then, assuming our species survives, can reason and logic rule.