By Alexander Perepechko
Published on March 6, 2012
We know well that states are not governed with rosary beads (Machiavelli, 2006a). States are governed by human beings with the virtues and vices of which we are capable. 500 years ago (note this number; we will come back to it in a future essay) Niccollò Machiavelli (2006b) in The Prince designed a set of rules for how to achieve and keep power and how to govern while in office. These rules are observed in various societies, consistent for different historical periods, and cannot be ignored by American elites today.
The central intent of these rules can be summarized this way. To achieve a desired end, a politician must keep information about his projects, and the means he possesses to implement them, as opaque as possible. At the same time, the politician must have a fast and accurate intuition about the character of the people with whom he deals, the ability to penetrate their hearts, and awareness of their projects and means to accomplish them. The effective politician must never be upset by fear, ambition of office, greed for money, hate, love, vanity, pride and lust. According to Machiavelli, this art is primarily a natural gift.
To achieve and keep power, politicians in all ages and countries successfully and endlessly use deceit as one of the major techniques. Why is this possible? A cold analyst, Machiavelli implies that it is one thing to lie and another to deceive. A politician may break his promises as long as he is capable of maintaining a reputation of sincerity and loyalty. But the politician needs to avoid falsehoods as much as possible. It is very useful to mix falsehood with truth when possible, so that it would be difficult to differentiate one from the other (see Mosca, 1972: 81-91).
Needless to say, Machiavelli fails to teach how to distinguish the morally superior leaders in politics. He did not address whether duplicity and falsehood were justifiable to do a good deed or save a country. Machiavelli was a brilliant theorist but an inferior practical politician. To reach a noble end (the liberation and reunification of Italy), he proposed disgusting means. An idealistic theorist, he learned from books about the human spirit, and his rules are often too generic. But it is practical experience that teaches a person with the necessary talents to know and appreciate human individuals. Without practical knowledge, the rigid and uniform use of a theory to deal with varied problems (each with its special characteristics) can be more dangerous than absolute ignorance.
These days many run for public office. Who are these people? What do their promises mean? The classic writings of Machiavelli can help answer these questions.
Firstly, Machiavelli’s teaching can help us to assess whether candidates have the necessary abilities. In recent times communication skills are crucial. Even if we do not have time to read Machiavelli’s books, we can still perform a simple test using the formula proposed by Aron (1987): “What unites politicians is the ability and love to converse and hold a discussion.”
Secondly, the transparency of projects and means for accomplishing them can vary significantly. Neo-conservative politicians are often tied to security and military elites. It would have been naive to expect Dick Cheney to present his plan to eliminate French made military grade uranium from Iraq to voters in the electoral campaign of 2000! The ends and means of liberal politicians used to be less opaque. But the slow descent of the neo-liberal elite, and the steady ascent of post-modernist politics in places like Seattle and Portland, raise questions about post-modernist ends. Post-modernist politicians tell a voter that post-modernism is a cultural trend without a project. They mean, whether said openly or not, that an arbitrary construction of surrogate identities is a key to understanding post-modernist politics. But anti-modernist groups in the Islamic world are also arbitrarily attempting to reconstruct ancient traditions (PA TV, 2011). In practice, this permits religious ideologies and ideological linguistic constructs to flourish. Since post-modernists worship surrogate identities—and construct them without drawing lines between different types of surrogates—suicide terrorism (for example, female shaheeds and shaheed “brides”) becomes a manifestation of “new forms of the struggle for identity”. Some observers (for example, Why is Radical, 2010) infer that both post-modernists and anti-modernists have a common end—an assault against Modernity.
Thirdly, American politicians often act as though the mere recitation of values and norms or the application of social theories ought to produce the results they desire (Kissinger, 1994: 438-439, 623, 668). Politicians who subscribe to Marxism and other leftist theories, which come from universities, tend to believe that political equality is insufficient if unaccompanied by economic equality, that man is born “good” and social institutions are responsible for making him “wicked.” They think that by changing social institutions humanity would be free to develop its natural goodness. They also often call for redistribution of wealth. Conservative politicians defend traditional values and norms and are often inspired by the teaching of evangelical Protestant churches.
Aron, R. (1987) Démocratie et totalitarisme. Paris: Folio.
Kissinger, H. A. (1994) Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Machiavelli, N. (2006a) History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent. EBook #2464. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2464/2464-h/2464-h.htm
Machiavelli, N. (2006b) The Prince. EBook #1232. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm
Mosca, G. (1972) A Short History of Political Philosophy. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
PA TV (Fatah), December 30, 2011. Available at http://palwatch.org/main.aspxfi=111&fld_id=111&doc_id+1180
Why is Radical Islam spreading in South Asia? Observer Research Foundation. Reports, March 12, 2010. Available at http://www.orfonline.org/cms/sites/orfonline/modules/report/ReportDetail.html?cmaid=18641&mmacmaid=18642