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Machiavelli's The Prince, part 1: the challenge of power
The first of a series examining the great political tract of the Italian
Renaissance asks: how do we utilise power to do good while utilising evil to
keep power?
_Nick Spencer_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/nick-spencer)
_guardian.co.uk_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) , Monday 26 March 2012
Niccolo Machiavelli shocked his contemporaries, and can still shock us,
with his easy acceptance of the role of violence and cruelty in worldly
success. At one point in his best-known work, _The Prince_
(http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232) , he argues casually that Fortune
should be raped:
"Fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and
thrust … she's more likely to yield that way."
It's a horrible picture that manages to upset us in a way that the book's
central theme upset its first readers: what if the Christian idea that
politics must be subject to justice was wrong? What if might is actually
right?
This was not a theoretical issue. Machiavelli lived his entire life in an
age in which deceit and brutality usually won through. His genius lay in his
ability to see and his honesty in admitting this.
He was born in Florence in 1469, the year that _Lorenzo de' Medici_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de'_Medici) (not the Lorenzo to whom
The
Prince is dedicated) assumed power. "Assumed" is technically misleading as
Florence had been a republic for more than a century. However, the system of
regular, short-term elections through which power was diffused had proved
perilously unstable. By the mid 15th century, real power lay in the hands of
a small number of rich families, the Medicis supreme among them. This
disjunction between political theory and reality would leave a deep mark on
Machiavelli.
The confusion within Florence was matched by disorder without, as the five
main Italian powers – Florence, Venice, Milan, the Papal states and Naples –
lived in a state of constant intrigue, negotiation and conflict, made
more complex still by the invasion of the French king, Charles VIII, at
Milanese invitation, in 1494.
This invasion saw the humiliation of Florence and the temporary overthrow
of the Medicis when Lorenzo's son, Piero, surrendered to the French and was
replaced by _Girolamo Savonarola_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola) , a puritanical,
book-burning Dominican friar, who sought to
reform the church and Florentine society. His execution at the stake, four
years later, changed Florence's political course once again, opening the door
to Machiavelli's diplomatic career and further confirming that "a ruler must
never imagine that any decision he takes is safe", as he put it at the end
of The Prince.
If, then, there was no such thing as complete political security, how could
a ruler hope to survive, let alone triumph? Machiavelli's answer is
sketched out in The Prince, which he wrote in 1513.
He argued, along with many contemporaries, that while a leader could never
fully conquer the goddess Fortune, he could at least make an effort to woo
and master her. Where he differed from his contemporaries was how.
Weak leaders, in his experience, were disastrous. Piero de Medici had been
incompetent and submissive. Piero Soderini, the head of state for whom
Machiavelli would work as a diplomat, was hopelessly indecisive. Even
Savonarola, although forceful himself, had no recourse to force and thus "was
overthrown along with all his reforms when people stopped believing in him."
By contrast, strong leaders achieved (a measure of) security and fame. Pope
Julius II achieved all three (military) aims he set himself. Pope
Alexander VI "showed what could be done with finance and force." Supremely,
there
was _Cesare Borgia_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia) ,
Alexander's son, of whom Machiavelli says: "I wouldn't know what better advice
to
give a ruler new to power than to follow his example."
Machiavelli charts Cesare's machinations at length, detailing how he
disguised his intentions, weakened opposing factions, broke old loyalties,
enriched allies and eliminated rivals. At one point he tells how Cesare
appointed a "cruel, no-nonsense man" to pacify a newly acquired territory. The
appointment was successful but Cesare, recognising how his man's severity had
provoked local enmity, "found a pretext … had [him] beheaded and his corpse
put on display one morning in the piazza … with a wooden block and a bloody
knife beside … The ferocity of the spectacle," Machiavelli records, "left
people both shocked and gratified."
Cesare was not simply a mindless butcher, however. Elsewhere, Machiavelli
tells how, having taken control of Romagna, Cesare found existing rulers
"had been stripping the people of their wealth rather than governing them". As
a result, he decided that "good government was required to pacify the
area".
What impressed Machiavelli was not so much Cesare's viciousness as his
readiness to do what was necessary when it was necessary. Only this kind of
cold-blooded determination would allow a prince to stay atop Fortune and
survive.
Instinctively, we want morality to show us a world where these choices
don't have to be made. But the challenge of Machiavelli, for Christians and
atheists alike, is that he confronts us with a terrible argument: we cannot do
good without power but we cannot gain power, nor keep it, without doing
evil.
.
------------------------------
Machiavelli's The Prince, part two: humanism and the lessons of history
The Prince follows humanist convention in commending virtuous rulers such
as Marcus Aurelius – but subverts it by praising tyrants for their cruelty
_Nick Spencer_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/nick-spencer)
_guardian.co.uk_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) , Monday 2 April 2012
.
It is a sadness of the present age that "humanism" has become such a narrow
and partisan term, effectively denoting atheism with a bit of good PR. It
wasn't always like that. Machiavelli was the inheritor of a tradition of
humanism that dated back to the 14th century and was far from anti-Christian.
As ever more ancient manuscripts were discovered in monastic libraries in
the middle ages, a new attitude to the classical world emerged. Cicero,
Tacitus, _Thucydides_ (http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html) and
_Lucretius_ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/) were valued, not
only for their rhetorical brilliance but also for their fundamentally
different view of the world and, in particular, of human nature.
Humanism contended that contrary to received wisdom, formed and sustained
under the shadow of _St Augustine_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo) , human corruption was not
total. Humans could make meaningful
choices about their lives and destiny. They could be genuinely virtuous. Human
dignity lay not so much in the possession of an immortal soul as in the
capacity for and exercise of freedom. Fortune (which could be influenced) as
opposed to Providence (which could not) became the presiding genius. Humans
were made for excellence. All this was achieved within a thoroughly
Christian framework. Embracing ideas of dignity, freedom and excellence did
not
entail rejecting Christianity, merely the Augustinian flavour of it to which
most people had become accustomed.
It did, however, involve a different attitude to the world, to work and,
most noticeably, to education. This was partly in who should be taught: now
all gentlemen would benefit from studying, not just those destined for the
church. But it was also in what should be taught. Scripture and
scholasticism gave way to the thought and literature of the classical world,
without
which no education could be considered complete. This was, in _Quentin
Skinner_ (http://www.history.qmul.ac.uk/staff/skinnerq.html) 's words, an
"almost
embarrassingly long-lived" idea, shaping the English educational system
until the time of Harold Macmillan.
The Prince stands firmly within this tradition. The whole "mirror for
princes" genre, of which it is the most famous example, although having
pre-humanist roots, was a typically humanist enterprise, in particular the way
it
chose to affirm rather than renounce worldly ambition. Within The Prince, as
with other such books of advice, examples from the ancient world dominate.
"A ruler must … exercise his mind [by] read[ing] history," Machiavelli
advises Lorenzo, "in particular accounts of great leaders and their
achievements."
The lessons of history need not be on the individual scale. Machiavelli was
fond of drawing examples from the Roman empire, explaining, for example,
that its stability was rooted in how "the Romans … never put off a war when
they saw trouble coming", or that its collapse was triggered "when they
started hiring Goths as mercenaries". If contemporary rulers sought greatness,
there was no greater example than the Roman empire.
Personal models were, however, more important. "Take as a model a leader
who's been much praised and admired and keep his examples and achievements in
mind at all times," Machiavelli advised. This is what ancient leaders
themselves had apparently done – Alexander the Great had modelled himself on
Achilles, Caesar on Alexander, Scipio on Cyrus – so it stood to reason that
what was modern ones should do. The Prince is peppered with such examples,
legends like Theseus and Romulus, or emperors like _Marcus Aurelius_
(http://www.iep.utm.edu/marcus/) , Pertinax and Alexander, "benign, humane men
who
led unassuming lives, loving justice and hating cruelty". It is, however,
also populated by other ancient figures, who were ruthless, manipulative or
plain brutal.
This in itself was not unprecedented. The tradition of learning from the
mistakes and faults of others was itself an ancient one. What Machiavelli
did, however, was use such moral monsters for affirmative rather than
censorious purposes. These people were worth studying not because they were
wrong,
but because they were strong.
Thus, in the same way as he drew a positive message from the example of
Cesare Borgia _as we saw last week_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/mar/26/machiavelli-prince-power-good-evil)
, he also wrote about
emperors like Commodus, Severus, Atoninus Caracalla and Maximinus, men who
were "extremely cruel and grasping", not to condemn but to learn from
them.
Hannibal, for example, is lauded in a chapter about cruelty and compassion
because he led "a huge and decidedly multiracial army far from home" in
which there was no sign of dissent or rebellion. How? Machiavelli's answer is
simple. It was his "tremendous cruelty". Stories like this illustrate how
Machiavelli simultaneously used and subverted the humanist historical
tradition. "Historians are just not thinking," he writes tetchily at one
point,
"when they praise [Hannibal] for this achievement and then condemn him for
cruelty."
It was entirely right that fellow humanists should seek to learn from
history. But they should at least do so honestly.
.
----------------------------
Machiavelli's The Prince, part three: the personal in the political
If the author's diplomatic career saturates The Prince, so does his
desperation for redemption after his fall from grace
_Nick Spencer_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/nick-spencer)
_guardian.co.uk_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) , Monday 9 April 2012
The Prince was a book of its time both politically (_as we saw in week
one_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/mar/26/machiavelli-prince-power-good-evil)
) and intellectually (_last week_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/02/machiavelli-humanism-history-prince)
). But it was also a personal book, and we miss something of its power if
we ignore its biographical context.
Machiavelli's family was neither wealthy nor well-connected. His father,
Bernardo, was a lawyer and humanist who diligently grounded his son in the
studia humanitatis but was unable to arrange for him a life of aristocratic
luxury or even a cushy government stipend.
Instead, although Machiavelli's early years are poorly documented, it seems
certain that it was a combination of humanist education, hard work and
intelligence that earned him a major appointment in 1498. Machiavelli was as
close to being a self-made man any anyone in Renaissance Florence.
As secretary of the Ten of War, Florence's foreign affairs and war
committee, he was the city's highest-ranking diplomat for 14 years, leading
embassies to and spending months in the courts of the French king, the pope,
the
holy Roman emperor, and others. The Prince was written by a man who, as he
informs _Lorenzo de' Medici_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de'_Medici) in the dedication, had
"knowledge [that was] gained through long
experience of contemporary affairs". When it came to geopolitics, Machiavelli
knew whereof he spoke.
The author's diplomatic career saturates The Prince. Alongside the Greek
and Roman models so favoured by humanists, the book is populated with
contemporary examples and lessons, many of them transposed, almost verbatim,
from
Machiavelli's personal correspondence and legations. Thus his breathless
praise for Cesare Borgia's ruthlessness, his admiration of Pope Julius II's
boldness, and his criticism of the _Emperor Maximilian_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor) 's ineptitude
passed largely
unaltered from diplomatic communiques into The Prince.
Even when his diplomatic memos are not quite so obvious, Machiavelli's
experience remains in view. His time at the French court taught him that the
Florentine view of their city's power and importance was utterly naive and
inflated. If the republic wished to survive it needed to recognise how the
real world worked. The Prince offered some candid and blunt advice along
these lines, explicitly drawn from a career at the ambassadorial coalface. The
author was, in effect, leaking the diplomatic cables in order to help "save
[Italy] from the cruelty and barbarity of [the] foreigners" encroaching
upon it.
The Prince is even more personal than this, however. In 1512, the Medicis,
with papal encouragement and Spanish help, defeated the Florentines and
dismantled the republic. Machiavelli found himself out of favour and out of
work. Worse, he was under suspicion for plotting against the new ruling clan
and was subsequently tortured by _strappado_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strappado) , in which the body was hoisted to
the ceiling by wrists bound
behind the back and then dropped to the floor, thereby usually tearing the
arms out of their sockets.
Machiavelli survived, maintained his innocence and was released. But the
experience marked him. "Fear means fear of punishment, and that's something
people never forget," he wrote in the chapter 17, on cruelty and compassion.
The Prince was Machiavelli's attempt to worm his way back into favour
following this disaster, and is marked not only by examples drawn from his
diplomatic career but by a heartfelt plea for preferment. This entailed the
mandatory obsequiousness that came with such "mirror for princes" books: "your
illustrious house … favoured by God and church … [is] well placed to lead
Italy to redemption," he writes towards the end of the book.
More strikingly, however, it also involved a personal entreaty that sounded
clear and early in the book. The dedication explains how The Prince's
wisdom derived from what the author had "discovered and assimilated over many
years of danger and discomfort". The book was written because the author was
"eager myself to bring Your Highness some token of my loyalty". And it was
hoped, the dedication concluded, that "this small gift" would encourage
"Your Highness" to "look down on those far below" and to see "how very
ungenerously and unfairly life continues to treat me". If there is a dark and
a
desperate tone to The Prince, it is because the author's life had, of late,
taken a dark and a desperate turn.
The sensitive diplomatic material and the personal nature of The Prince
helps explain why, although written in 1513, the book was not published until
after Machiavelli's death, over 15 years later. For all its subsequent
fame, it had little immediate impact, at least not in the way Machiavelli had
desired. The Prince failed in its mission and Machiavelli lived the rest of
his life in political obscurity.
.
-------------------
Machiavelli's The Prince, part four: benevolence to complement brutality
It is the model prince's humanity that makes him so disturbing. He's more
amoral than immoral – only staying in power matters
_Nick Spencer_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/nick-spencer)
_guardian.co.uk_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) , Monday 16 April 2012
More than any other political theorist, Machiavelli's reputation precedes
him. Some people talk about Rawlsian ideas or Kantian ethics or a Hobbesian
world – usually those who want to sound clever and educated – but it's
perfectly fine to use the word Machiavellian without claiming to have read The
Prince. Everyone does and everyone knows what it means.
It can come as something of a surprise, then, to find that Machiavelli
wrote in The Prince that "a man who becomes king … must make it an absolute
priority to win over the affection of the common people", or that "sensible
rulers and well-run states have done all they can … to keep the people happy
and satisfied; indeed this is one of a ruler's most important tasks."
The ideal ruler is not, it seems, a dagger-wielding psychopath. On the
contrary, he "should go about things … humanely". Nor should he be a leader in
the sense of inspiring terror in everyone around him. On the contrary, "a
king must guard against being despised and hated", both by noblemen and
commoners.
Noblemen, or at least some of them, must feel comfortable speaking honestly
to their prince. A leader who "trusts no one makes himself unbearable".
Accordingly, "he should make it clear that the more openly [ministers] speak,
the more welcome will their advice be".
Respecting commoners is, if anything, more important still. "People's
aspirations are more honourable that those of the nobles," Machiavelli admits.
Therefore, "a ruler must avoid any behaviour that will lead to his being
hated or held in contempt".
This is more than hot air. It means that the ruler should "respect" the
"guilds and districts" into which "every city" is divided, and "go to their
meetings from time to time, showing what a humane a generous person he is".
It means that "if he really has to have someone executed, he should only do
it when he has proper justification and manifest cause".
And it means that he should instate and protect sound public institutions.
France, he says, is a one of the better governed states of our age, "full
of good institutions", the most important of which is "parliament and
parliamentary authority". "There couldn't be a better or more sensible
institution," he gushes, "nor one more conducive to the security of kind and
the
realm."
None of which sounds particularly "Machiavellian".
It will be clear the Machiavelli's model prince is no political Satan,
bidding "evil, be thou my good". Indeed, were he to have been so, he would,
paradoxically, have been less shocking and somewhat easier to deal with.
Monsters, after all, are manageable. Remorseless sadism may nauseate us but if
we can convince ourselves that such people are completely different from us,
not even of the same species, we do not feel quite so threatened by their
actions.
By contrast, it is precisely because its model prince is recognisably
human, valuing many of the things we value, and pursuing paths that we
ourselves
would advocate, that The Prince is so disturbing. He is one of us, too
realistic, too credible to be readily dismissed. You may not always admit so
in public, Machiavelli whispers to us, but you too think like this, don't
you?
Machiavelli's moral universe is not one of unredeemed or unredeemable
immorality, therefore. It is subtler, more amoral than immoral. By all means,
govern well, execute sparingly, respect institutions, and invite honest
advice, Machiavelli says, while in the same breath telling the prince that he
must execute some of the coldest and most brutal acts of political violence.
So, for example, he reports that there are three ways of keeping control
over newly conquered but previously self-governing states: "Reduce them to
rubble … go and live there yourself … let them go on living under their own
laws … and install a [puppet] government." Each has its own merits but "the
truth is that the only sure way to hold such places is to destroy them".
That isn't mandatory. You may decide not to raze them, in which case "the
best way to hold a previously self-governing city it with the help of its own
citizens". But it is still an option.
Machiavelli doesn't advocate violence for its own sake. On the contrary, he
repeatedly insists that such frenzied aggression is counter-productive.
What is shocking is the way in which the brutal rubs shoulders with the
benign, the vicious with the virtuous in a matter-of-fact way. He is not so
much
saying the morally wrong way is the necessarily right way for a prince to
go about his business. Rather, he is implying that the morally right way is
simply irrelevant. What matters is staying in power.
--
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