Niccoló Machiavelli
Asha Chang
The University of the West Indies

Niccolo Machiavelli
From the centuries of the Dark Ages to the time of St. Tomas Aquinas’ birth, marked a time of steady increase in thought and knowledge. A man would come after however, adding new knowledge by taking a different approach from his fore runners, about the state and governance. Some would refer to his work as promoting the evil nature of man, which happen to be persons who have never read his work; while others believe that he only gives evidence to his heightened intellect and reveals the true nature of human-kind. This man was known as Niccolo Machiavelli.
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy to a relatively well of family in 1469 and died in 1527 A.D. He was born at the time when Europe was blossoming with the Renaissance (rebirth of knowledge/learning). He is known as the Man of Age and Reason. He was born in an era that discovered and explored the World of Classical Greece and Rome; on the one hand and embraced the scientific and technological innovations of the emerging capitalist class and of Arab scientists and technologists. After the 14th century the writings and thoughts began to move in the direction to rationalism/secular beliefs and by the 15th century the Renaissance was born like a little baby growing with Classical Humanism by which knowledge broke with faith and claimed superiority over it. “The Renaissance goes beyond the moral selfhood of Stoicism, the spiritual uniqueness of Christianity, the aesthetic individuality of the Ancient Greeks, and views man in his totality, in his flesh and blood as well as in his mind and spirit – man in relation to himself, to society, to the world. Displacing God, man becomes the centre of the universe; the values of this new solar system are inevitably different from those of the God-centered universe.” (Ebenstein, 2000)
The socio-political issues that surrounded the era greatly influenced Machiavelli’s work especially since he was an Italian. Italy at the time of the Renaissance never lost living contacts with its ancient past. Italy was based in antiquity which could be seen in its cities, “it abounded in relics and monuments of past glories, and the language was still the language (with some minor changes) with Caeser and Cicero.” (Ebenstien, 2000). Italy stayed as an island surrounded by changes that permeated countries such as France, England and Germany and remained as the only country unperturbed by invasions or wars and still maintained the communal life in its city-states which were individualistic republicans in the sea of European monarchical loyalties. “Florentine diplomat and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli spoke uncomfortable truths about power. Yet, in contrast to the harsh advice he offered in “The Prince” — a notorious work of philosophy that is often regarded as the tyrant's handbook — Machiavelli was devoted to his family and his country and was incorruptible in his public life.” (Unger, 2012)
Machiavelli deterred from his predecessors Plato, Aristotle and St. Tomas Aquinas in that he placed man at the centre of the state whereas the others placed God/morals and ethics. Machevelli saw man as being in control of his actions and his destiny. With this view in mind, many concur that he in a sense overthrew God and replaced him with man. There are two main was in which scholars see him as contributing significantly to Western Political thought: 1) He promoted a state of man in which man ruled without any reference to God. 2) His preference was in a secular state, hence he believed in the separation of the church and state. He was convinced that the needs of the state were fundamentally different from the needs of the church.
There are many examples in which the separation of church and state has been brought into the governance of a country such as: In the 18th century constitution of France separated politics from religion and also following the American revolt in the late 1800’s asserted the same principle. Even in countries today and political speeches it is still seen as a pressing issue to delink the two, such as in Santorum’s speech for the candidacy of the 2012 presidential elections of the U.S.A.
Machiavelli’s famous writing ‘The Prince’ entails many radical views on the state, governance and power. One may ask however, what was the reasoning behind this profound book? At the age of twenty nine (29) Machiavelli worked in the public service for his city and remained there for nearly over fourteen (14) years. During this time he developed a liking for politics even though he was not employed on the highest levels of policy making - still he was close enough to the administration circles. Unfortunately for Machiavelli in 1512, he lost his job when the Florential government was overthrown and replaced by an absolute regime of the Medici from the support of France and papal help. Machiavelli was accused of serious crimes and was tortured. Finally he was tried and found not guilty and was banished to a farm near Florence where he crafted new ideas and worked on the book ‘The Prince’. Quite ironically he dedicated this famous work to Lorenzo Medici – the same man that tried to imprison him.
False accusations did not stop Machiavelli as his famous work is so profound by what it says but even more so by what it ignores. Some translators/writers such as R. Goodwin believed that we “secretly believe that what [Machiavelli] he says is right but will not admit to it. As a result we ascribe to him those negative attributes and blame him for being its messenger. The strange thing is that while we may learn from his science, we deny him entrance through our front door, but keep a path open for him to come through the back door – and herein lies the Machiavellian paradox”. (Goodwin, 2003) Even Machiavelli himself admits in ‘The Prince’ that the thing he says even to him are unbelievable but he has told so many lies that no one would notice behind the thick disguise. "I have never said what I believe or believed what I said," he wrote near the end of his life. "If indeed I do sometimes tell the truth, I hide it behind so many lies that it is hard to find." (Unger, 2012). Machiavelli liked to portray himself as a master of deceit.
Deceit can be defined as “making a person believe something that is not true” (Delahunty & McDonald, 2005) and Machiavelli saw this as using any means possible to achieve an end - power. He ignores the notions of ethics and morals. It is stated that in the same way humans are driven by hunger and whereas other animals are destined to go from one meal to the next, humans are designed to scheme ways to assure the next food. However human beings are not satisfied, and will go to the death for his catch, thus denying it to others. Such is Machiavelli’s view of power. Before his time however, the political writings that existed before from Plato – St. Aquinas and also during the Renaissance all had a central theme concerning the end of the state. Political power was assumed to be a means in the surface of a higher end such as justice or even God.
Machiavelli however ignores the issue of the end of the state. He asserts that “power is an end in itself and he confines his inquiries into the means that are best suited to acquire, retain, and expand poweralso in order to seek power it must be best suited to retain, acquire and expand power. Therefore he places power at the centre and separates it from ethics, morality and religion - thus setting up the state as an autonomous system of values independent of any other source.” (Ebenstein, 2000)
The adage ‘the end justifies the means” by which Machiavelli is clearly identified, is also another difference from his predecessors. This quote simply means that whatever is necessary to reach a specified end or goal should be used whether good or bad and this determines a good leader from a failed one. Whatever is necessary to acquire, maintain and expand power is fair game for Machiavelli as long as the means helps the leader to achieve his end/goal of obtaining power. In this light the Prince will be judged as honourable. In the book ‘The Prince’ he describes that a good leader should rule either by force or law wherein law comes naturally to men and force comes naturally to beasts of the land. The Prince is instructed that if he wishes to fight/lead effectively he must learn to use both characteristics thus becoming half man and half beast.
The allusion to two main animals of life: 1) The lion and 2) The fox, is clearly stated in Machiavelli’s writings. The lion represents the strength and bravery of a leader while the fox represents the cunning and sly ways that a leader has to have in order to reach a required ‘end.’ “..the lion cannot protect himself from the traps, and the fox cannot defend himself against the wolves.” (Ebenstein, 2000) One may find this statement on first hearing one that it promotes evil; however looking at the behaviour of our present day leaders and employing critical thinking will surface truth in the above quote. Many of the leaders of our 21st century such as Hon. Bruce Golding would be considered a bad leader by Machiavelli’s definition since his affiliation with the drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke back-fired hence his resignation from office. Another example comes from the middle east- “hundreds of thousands demonstrated for Saddam Hussein who torched numberless oil fields whose uncontrolled blazes contaminated atmosphere and land alike; thousands more demonstrated on his behalf even when his weapons of mass destruction(whose only purpose is to kill and degrade)were obviously being stored for use against other human beings. And people willingly became human shields in demonstrating on behalf of this committed tyrant, who, on having invaded three (3) countries, having mounted a missile attack on a fourth (4th), and having used deadly gas that killed thousands, not one person or group or the Pope was found significantly demonstrating against him or against his despotic regime.” (Goodwin, 2003)
A good leader/Prince should be able to be merciful and not cruel. “He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel, but his cruelty had brought order to the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and fealty. If this is considered well, it will be seen that he was really much more merciful than the Florentine people, who to avoid the name of cruelty, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed.” (Ebenstein, 2000)
Hence one can conclude that for the Prince it is better to be feared than loved and brought to ruin – a minor evil is worth executing for the greater good of the masses. Thus an approach to the Machiavellian view point is: a cruel man + a harsh man=an ideal state. An explanation for this stems from the fact that the state contains its own value system set apart from morality and religion for in the same way that moralists acknowledges the superiority of its moral code over competing system of values, the politician is guided in his actions by the code of the state whose integrity and vitality are based upon whatever ‘means’ are employable to achieve power. “His ways of acquiring power were definitely not paralleled to those of the Bible. Machiavelli was not interested in what one do according to the Bible, but rather what one must do given the true nature of circumstances. He sought the truth of keeping power in the context of a real and sinful society; not the way the church would view society. However Machiavelli did not believe in pursuing evil for evil's sake, rather when the only way to keep power is to act evilly, one must. Good and evil are equal in the contest for power.” (Sparknotes, 2002)
Machiavelli was a very practical man and his work serves as a political manual for governance to leaders. He asserts that the actions of the good leader should be played out in the adage ‘the end justifies the means’. The tactic to employ in good effect is the one that will allow the politician to win victory over his opponent by acquiring power. Machiavelli outlines in ‘The Prince’ that even though it may be wonderful to see a Prince keep his promises and live with integrity and not with cruelty, a Prince should not fall into the temptation for gaining praise because of those values; as it would not be in his best interest as when the reason which made him commit no longer exist then one would look upon the Prince as a failed leader.This is the nature of man, since they are not likely to keep their promise with you; hence you are not likely to keep your promise with them.
In our society today, the Western Civilization has encompassed more than half the world, most countries are moving towards a liberal more democratic state and this is due to globalization. “globalization is a process in which geographic, economic and cultural boundaries of decreasing significance, first and foremost to the movement of capital...boundaries are of decreasing significance not only for the movement of capital but also for the movement of goods, people, services, ideas, values and diseases.”(Munroe, 2002) Saying this to say that the governance of our leaders has become much more transparent over the years, where many of their activities and transactions are within public view and hearing. So whereas many would take the Machiavellian root, they are more likely to think twice. Because as much as Machiavelli makes his arguments to seem flawless, being deceitful has its consequences even if the actor believes no one will find out. George W. Bush is a prime example of a modern day Machiavellian and even though he had portrayed himself to be the ideal President; it wasn’t until his term had ended that people began to see the true George W. Bush. However he mastered the art of deceit since his plan did not necessarily turn back on him as did leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, and Bruce Golding.
“A leader should be either a true friend or a true enemy.....and it will always happen that the one who is not your friend will want you to remain neutral, and the one who is your friend will require you to declare yourself by taking arms.” (Ebenstein, 2000) Machiavelli warns not to take the side of neutrality as most are ruined by it; he advises one to choose a side even if the one you chose conquers at least you will gain his respect and friendship.
Finally, Machiavelli’s work showed his unchangeable belief that only a true powerful state governed by a particular leader which he outlined could ensure stability. He believes that a state can operate autonomously without morals, ethics and religion playing role and that whatever needs to be done in order to maintain peace in a society is justifiable. This justification does not have to stem from something bad per se so long as it is done for the greater good. It is on this point that he differs completely from the philosophers before his time. He insisted that the human condition would never improve until we acknowledged our true nature: "I believe that the following would be the true way to Paradise — learn the way to Hell in order to flee from it." Even his infamous defence of the liar's art is merely an attempt to save us from the bigger lie that men are basically virtuous. After all, that is the falsehood that the unscrupulous tell to exploit the gullible. "If all men were good," Machiavelli explains to the would-be prince, "this precept would not be good, but since they are wicked and would not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them." (Unger, 2012). His conclusion was that the maintainance of unity within a state proves that the government has moved in the right direction. One may wonder upon concluding, what eventually became of the Medici and Machiavelli himself. Well, a few years later the Medici were kicked out of Florence. The republic was re-established, and Machiavelli ran to retake the office he had left so many years ago. But the reputation that The Prince had established made people think his philosophy was like the Medici, so he was not elected. And here the sharp downhill of his life began. His health began to fail him, and he died months later, in 1527.

References
Aquinas T. St. Translated by D’Entreves, A.P. (1987) Aquinas: Selected Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, Oxford, Cambridge
Burnett, B. Machiavelli’s President. (October 17, 2005)Retreieved March 18, 2012, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-burnett/Machiavellis -president_b_9023.html
Delahunty A. & McDonald F. Eds.(2005). Oxford Pocket School Dictionary (pp.175). Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Ebenstein W. & Ebenstein A. (2000) Great Political Thinkers - Plato to the Present (pp.291 – 301) Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning 10 Davis Drive, Belmont CA 94002-3098, USA
Machiavelli N. The Prince Translated by Goodwin G., Illustrated by Martinez B.(2003) Dante University Press, Boston P.O. Box 812158 Wellsley MA 02482

Munroe T. (2002) An Introduction to Politics Lectures for First year Students (pp. 123) Canoe Press 1A Aqueduct Flats, Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica
Scott, J. and Marshall, G. (2009). Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. Mass media, the sociology of and Social Control (pp.79-80, 644- 645 & 699). Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP SparkNotes Editors. (2002). SparkNote on The Prince. Retrieved March 6, 2012, from http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince Unger M. Was Machiavelli, really Machiavellian? Honestly, no. Retrieved March 18, 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/whats-in-a-name/machiavelli.html Machiavelli: The Elements of Power Retrieved March 17, 2012 from http://www.emaachiavelli.com/history_copy (1).htm