Was Machiavelli an individual-anarchist in regards to his society?

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batswill
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Sep 17 2011 15:18
Was Machiavelli an individual-anarchist in regards to his society?

Do the means justify the ends? Should one tell a lie to save a life, or tell a truth that kills a life? Is justice really truth? Is criminality circumstancial? LOL.

"I am not interested in preserving the status quo, I only wish to destroy it"

This is pivotal!

"It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope."

In otherwords, Statists deny innate goodness, as has the catholic tendency throughout its entire history, since the days when religious states existed..

"Politics have no relation to morals."

Politics is not about justice or goodness....

" The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love."

The natural unhindered liberties.

"The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it"

Do I detect a trace of sentimental nostalgic rhetoric here?

"There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt."

Any revolt is the harbinger of future collapse.

"To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people. "

We are all equal and capable.

"We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either."

Privilege was just stomped on.

"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred."

Yawn! Give me a gun please, or leave me alone.

"Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself."

Reformists never succeed

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jef costello's picture
jef costello
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Sep 18 2011 10:32

As far as I can remember these quotations are all from The Prince, which could be considered a form of CV. Macciavelli wanted to show his skill as a diplomat after a change in rulers put him out of favour (he was also imprisoned and tortured).
He was in favour of a republic as can be seen in his Discourses that was based on a citizen's militia and democracy. Still not sure how progressive he was, but I do like him as to write a text as cynical and ruthlessly pragmatic as The Prince you really need to understand politics and society very well.

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Malva
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Sep 18 2011 10:52

Contemporaries were shocked with Machiavelli precisely because he revealed the real motivations underlying much statecraft during the Renaissance. It undercut all of the hypocritical self-definitions of contemporary governments and the Church. His 'CV' was not particularly well received as I recall because it struck too much at the truth and therefore was dangerous. On the one hand, a lot of statesmen have been cynical enough to use it. And on the other, Debord arguably saw his own negative critique of the Spectacle as a similar project to that of Machievelli.

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Devrim
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Sep 18 2011 12:35

There is a school of thought, which includes people as divergent as such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Antonio Gramsci, that the Prince was written as a satire, and an attack on the political elites of the time.

Devrim

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Malva
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Sep 18 2011 13:51

In fact, I think it is a highly anachronistic to use the term anarchist. It is worth remembering that Machiavelli lived between 1469 and 1527. 'Anarchists', 'Anarchism' and its theorists didn't really emerge until the 19th century. Calling Machiavelli an 'individual anarchist' seems a bad idea. Unless we use the term anarchist to mean someone who is part of the historical mass movement or who holds to its general theories it just turns into an empty phrase. Using 'individual anarchist' in this context means as much as giving him an rpg orientation such as 'chaotic neutral'. I think it is better to see Machiavelli in terms of his own time. A renaissance man, something of a cynic and politically ambitious. And a very talented writer. This doesn't mean that he is not worth reading. As Devrim points out, Machiavelli has provided inspiration for a lot of 'progressive' figures in history. But that is due to his exemplary cynicism and its object, the politics of the Italian Renaissance city state (which has historically contributed to the modern state), than with 'Anarchism' or 'anarchists'.

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Auld-bod
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Sep 18 2011 14:10

Was 'The Prince' not bedtime reading for Hitler? Seem to remember 'the night of the long knives' as one of the book's suggestions.

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Malva
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Sep 18 2011 14:51

@Auld-bold

This is the thing with a book like The Prince. Whatever their political intentions: Works that describe the mechanisms of power can serve to help power better manage itself as much as they can reveal its inhumanity. I have no doubt that France's next generation of cabinet ministers are avidly reading The Society of the Spectacle, for example.

Quote:
On Guy Debord: On January 29, 2009, 15 years after his death, Christine Albanel, Minister of Culture, classified the archive of his works as a "national treasure" in response to a sale request by Yale University.[9][10] The Ministry declared that "he has been one of the most important contemporary thinkers, with a capital place in history of ideas from the second half of the 20th century."

Wikipedia

Is this Debord's fault? I don't think so. Then again I can't imagine anyone reading The Revolution of Everyday Life by Vaneigem for such a purpose. Perhaps the difference is that Vaneigem is much clearer that his book is both critique and depassement of society. No doubt this is why media students and political scientists are all reading Society of the Spectacle and none of Debord's other work. The same logic goes for Machiavelli.

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Dave B
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Sep 18 2011 15:48

I don't recognise most of those quotes; are they all real?

Quote:
2. There never was a new prince who has disarmed his subjects; rather when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, because, by arming them, those arms become yours, those men who were distrusted become faithful, and those who were faithful are kept so, and your subjects become your adherents. And whereas all subjects cannot be armed, yet when those whom you do arm are benefited, the others can be handled more freely, and this difference in their treatment, which they quite understand, makes the former your dependents, and the latter, considering it to be necessary that those who have the most danger and service should have the most reward, excuse you.

But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown; even if they should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful enemies and distrusted subjects. Therefore, as I have said, a new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms. Histories are full of examples. But when a prince acquires a new state, which he adds as a province to his old one, then it is necessary to disarm the men of that state, except those who have been his adherents in acquiring it; and these again, with time and opportunity, should be rendered soft and effeminate; and matters should be managed in such a way that all the armed men in the state shall be your own soldiers who in your old state were living near you.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/machiavelli/works/prince/ch20.htm

More like a Leninist I think eg;

Chapter IX.

To found a new republic, or to reform entirely the old institutions of an existing one, must be the work of one man only.


http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/machiavelli/works/discourses/ch01.htm#s09

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Dave B
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Sep 18 2011 16:26

There is a question mark over the sincerity of the Prince itself, and that it was a joke, like in my opinion that other comedian who wrote books on Princes, Rousseau

Nicholas Machiavel's LETTER to Zanobius Buondelmontius in VINDICATION Of Himself and His WRITINGS

Quote:
I come now to the last branch of my charge, which is, that I teach Princes villainy, and how to enslave and oppress their Subjects; ………….If any man will read over my Book of the Prince with any impartiality and ordinary charity, he will easily perceive, that it is not my intention therein to recommend that Government, or those men there described, to the world; much less to teach them to trample upon good men, and all that is sacred and venerable upon earth, Laws, Religion, Honest, and what not; If I have been a little too punctual in designing these Monsters, and drawn them to the life in all their lineaments and colors, I hope mankind will know them the better to avoid them, my Treatise being both a Satire against them, and a true Character of them;

http://www3.uakron.edu/machia/machia-letter.htm

The above quote, or a very similar one, appeared in on the opening page of Burnhams Managerial revolution on co-ordinating classes, Burnham was an expert on Niccolo Machiavelli.

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Dave B
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Sep 18 2011 16:55

There is a problem howver;

Neville dates Machiavelli's letter to 1 April 1537 - after Machiavelli died.

It's also April Fools day

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batswill
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Sep 18 2011 18:36
Malva wrote:
In fact, I think it is a highly anachronistic to use the term anarchist. It is worth remembering that Machiavelli lived between 1469 and 1527. 'Anarchists', 'Anarchism' and its theorists didn't really emerge until the 19th century. Calling Machiavelli an 'individual anarchist' seems a bad idea. Unless we use the term anarchist to mean someone who is part of the historical mass movement or who holds to its general theories it just turns into an empty phrase. Using 'individual anarchist' in this context means as much as giving him an rpg orientation such as 'chaotic neutral'. I think it is better to see Machiavelli in terms of his own time. A renaissance man, something of a cynic and politically ambitious. And a very talented writer. This doesn't mean that he is not worth reading. As Devrim points out, Machiavelli has provided inspiration for a lot of 'progressive' figures in history. But that is due to his exemplary cynicism and its object, the politics of the Italian Renaissance city state (which has historically contributed to the modern state), than with 'Anarchism' or 'anarchists'.

In fact, (whatever that particular thing is?), I am more concerned with semiotics rather than with an unbroken linear-historical analysis of ideological tendencies, in other words, I think the "rpg orientation such as 'chaotic neutral'" is an appropriate yet crude analogy for 'individual anarchist'. So in the end you unwittingly support my abstract theory.

"A renaissance man" !

Everytime I hear this flogged and clichéd term I wince, another example of gross generalizations summed up in catchy phrases about a state of consciousness.

"the politics of the Italian Renaissance city state (which has historically contributed to the modern state), than with 'Anarchism' or 'anarchists'."

Next you'll be saying capitalism was subsumed by the Mafioso!

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Malva
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Sep 18 2011 18:59

@Batswill I don't know what it was about my post that pissed you off so much. 'In fact' is just a habit of speech for me, like saying 'another thing i'd like to add'. As for semiotics this definitely doesn't have much to do with anarchism as far as i know and a lot of Marxists think that it doesn't have much political to say at all. How can you be a symbolic anarchist and not an historical anarchist exactly? When I said renaissance man I meant it literally in the sense of someone who lived during the renaissance, i.e. in a certain society at a given point in history. When I called him a cynic (if this is what you mean by a catchy phrase?) I meant that he reduces politics down to violent, calculating ways to get what you want. As for saying that the Renaissance state contributed to the modern state, this is historically accurate. Western bureaucracy, modern state warfare, modern banking, ideas of good statesmanship etc. a lot of them were developed in Renaissance Italy. Symbols are material as anything else and are therefore created in historical moments and take their meaning from those moments, unless we decide to give them new meanings in our own historical moment.

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batswill
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Sep 18 2011 19:55

Malva, I'm just defining some symbols, semiotics has relevence to understanding political methods of persuasion and the mechanisms that empower authority. The Situationists were about revealing social paradigms, Machiavelli revealed city-state politics from the perspective of the mercenary, as any small 'a' anarchist would aspire to do. It's not an ideology, but a constant guard against indoctrination which defines the 'individual-anarchist'.

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jef costello
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Sep 20 2011 19:55
Devrim wrote:
There is a school of thought, which includes people as divergent as such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Antonio Gramsci, that the Prince was written as a satire, and an attack on the political elites of the time.

Devrim

I've not heard that before, although it is interesting.

DaveB, which Rousseau text were you thinking of? I remember him being a bit of a humourless bastard and I'd be interested to have a look.

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Dave B
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Sep 20 2011 21:19

I hadn’t realised that Rousseau had thought the Machiavelli’s Prince and/or for that matter Machiavelli’s other stuff was satire.

I read Machiavelli’s stuff and formed that opinion, I always prefer to read stuff like that first and then read around it later.

I think Rousseau’s stuff was satire as well ie the Social contract.

He actually wrote an extremely entertaining and easy to read novel called the New Heliose which is just a good read on its own and it does also contain some of his philosophy/satire in it.

It depends on your sense of humour I suppose whether or not you think it is funny.

It was a best seller at the time and due to the way it was written, which was quite original for its time, people believed it was actually true.

The Old Heliose was an autobiographical story written by an actual intellectual in the 13th century or something and was the subject of considerable controversy itself over its authenticity.

It revolved around the author being the tutor to the young daughter of a rich merchant or something resulting in them having intercourse and her, as a modern woman, not wanting to get married because she thought it would ruin the good sex.

After dad found out and things went pear shaped she went to a monastry became a famous nun, like you do.

Don’t pull me up over the details.

There was some other Rousseau’s stuff that does seem to question his sincerity yet another letter to some statist autocrat or something.

Regarding Zanobius letter and potential forgery the boney finger of suspicion seems to point at the First Marquess of Wharton who may have written it in Cahoots with Neville and the incumbent Bishop of Gloucester.

Why Burnham put it in the opening of his book probably knowing that there was a cloud of suspicion over it is another intrigue.

He did quite well Burnham going from leading Trot theoretician, of considerable talent I may add, to being awarded the congressional medal of honour by Ronald Reagan for his services to paleo conservatism.

I don’t think everything absurd is satire and I am almost sure for instance Mandeville wasn’t;

Quote:
So also Bernard de Mandeville at the beginning of the eighteenth century:

It would be easier, where property is well secured, to live without money than without poor; for who would do the work? ... As they [the poor] ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive nothing worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry, and pinching his belly, lifts himself above the condition he was brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay, it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society, and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor-should almost never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get.... Those that get their living by their daily labour ... have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing then that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate quantity of money, for as too little will, according as his temper is, either dispirit or make him desperate, so too much will make him insolent and lazy.

From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides, that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable. “To make the society” [which of course consists of non-workers] “happy and people easier under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as poor; knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied.”

What Mandeville, an honest, clear-headed man, had not yet seen.........

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm

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CornetJoyce
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Sep 21 2011 04:19

Machiavelli was, among other things, a comedian. His comedy Mandragola is well known, Clizia somewhat less. But I don't see how anyone could read the Discourses as humor. There are a few witticisms in the History but it's hardly Joe Miller's Joke Book.
On the other hand, his comedy is easier to find than his "anarchism."
Marx called Machiavelli "the Copernicus of the State"