Machiavelli
Machiavelli
Machiavelli
The pope as ruler - one Italian ruler among others. The old
ambition to stand as arbiter of all the quarrels of Christendom
had dwindled to the more practicable, but more worldly,
ambition to retain the sovereignty of central Italy.
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of its compensations, and divisions among the tyrants left the
land a prey to the French, the Spanish, and the Germans.
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Art of government
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
The closest analogue to Machiavelli's separation of political
expedience
from morality is probably to be found in some parts of Aristotle's
Politics, where Aristotle considers the preservation of states without
reference to their goodness or badness.
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The Christian virtues he believed to be servile in their effects on
character and he contrasted Christianity unfavorably in this respect
with the more virile religions of antiquity.
He had nothing but admiration for the civic virtues of the ancient
Romans and of the Swiss in his own day, and he believed that these
grew out of purity in the family, independence and sturdiness in
private life, simplicity and frugality of manners, and loyalty and
trustworthiness in performing public duties. But this does not mean
that the ruler must believe in the religion of his subjects or practice
their virtues.
An army fights with morale as truly as with guns, and the wise ruler
sees that both are of the best quality. Machiavelli offers an extreme
example of a double standard of morals, one for the ruler and
another for the private citizen. The first is judged by success in
keeping and increasing his power; the second, by the strength which
his conduct imparts to the social group.
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UNIVERSAL EGOISM
Behind nearly everything that Machiavelli said about political policy
was the assumption that human nature is essentially selfish, and that
the
effective motives on which a statesman must rely are egoistic, such as
the desire for security in the masses and the desire for power in rulers.
He frequently remarks, however, that men are in general bad and that
the wise ruler will construct his policies on this assumption. In
particular he insists that successful government must aim at security
of property and of life before everything else, since these are the most
universal desires in human nature. Hence his cynical remark that a
man more readily forgives the murder of his father than the
confiscation of his patrimony. The prudent ruler may kill but he will
not plunder. When completed by a systematic psychology to explain
and justify it, this phase of Machiavelli became the political
philosophy of Hobbes.
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corrupt society, with no such partial mitigation as the monarchy
brings in France and Spain. they have each a king who keeps them
united.
Man always commit the error of not knowing when to limit their
hopes."
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state but of society as well, with all its moral, religious, and economic
institutions.
For if human individuals are by nature radically egoistic, the state and
the force behind the law must be the only power that holds society
together; moral obligations must in the end be derived from law and
government.
The ruler, as the creator of the state, is not only outside the law, but if
law enacts morals, he is outside morality as well. There is no standard
to judge his acts except the success of his political expedients for
enlarging and perpetuating the power of his state. The frankness with
which Machiavelli accepted this conclusion and included it in his
advice to rulers is the chief reason for the evil reputation of the
Prince, though the Discourses were really no better. He openly
sanctioned the use of cruelty, perfidy, murder, or any other means,
provided only they are used with sufficient intelligence and secrecy to
reach their ends.
Thus Machiavelli insisted upon the need for legal remedies against
official abuses in order to prevent illegal violence and pointed out the
political dangers of lawlessness in rulers and the folly of vexatious
and harassing policies.
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In particular, the prudent ruler will abstain from the property and the
women of his subjects, since these are the matters on which men are
most easily stirred to resistance.
Aristocracy and the nobility. More than any other thinker of his time
he
perceived that the interests of the nobility are antagonistic both to
those of the monarchy and of the middle class, and that orderly
government required their suppression or extirpation. These
"gentlemen," who live idly on the proceeds of their wealth without
giving any useful service, are "everywhere enemies of all civil
government."
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causes of lawlessness in Italy, the bands of hired ruffians who were
ready to fight for whosoever would offer the largest pay, who were
faithful to no one, and who were often more dangerous to their
employer than to his enemies. Such professional soldiers had almost
wholly displaced the older citizen-soldiers of the free cities, and while
they were able to terrorize Italy, they had proved their incompetence
against better organized and more loyal troops from France.
Machiavelli had a clear perception of the advantage which France
gained from nationalizing her army and consequently he was never
tired of urging that the training and equipment of a citizen-army is the
first need of a state. As he knew from his own observation, mercenary
troops and foreign auxiliaries are alike ruinous to the ruler who must
depend upon them. They exhaust his treasury and almost invariably
fail him in a pinch. The art of war is therefore the primary concern of
a ruler, the condition of success in all his ventures. Before everything
else he must aim to possess a strong force of his own citizens, well
equipped and well disciplined, and attached to his interests by ties of
loyalty to the state.