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Machiavelli, the Prince, and the Tradition of Liberty

By Hunter Baker on 11.5.09 @ 11:09AM

Machiavelli's succinct and semi-diabolical advice to the prince is one of the most enduring works of political philosophy in the world. This man, writing in a time roughly contemporaneous with the Reformation, was less concerned with seeking the will of God than with winning at all costs. I wrote about him in my book The End of Secularism.

He is famous for advising the prince that it is important to appear honest, humane, religious, faithful, and charitable, but that it is equally important the prince be ready to abandon any of those attributes when opportunity presents itself. The prince should not worry about whether he will gain a bad reputation for deception, because, as Machiavelli suggests, there are always ordinary people willing to be deceived and the world is FULL of ordinary people.

The primary thrust of the book is advice about how to gain principalities and to maintain control of them. Many things work to a prince's advantage, such as traditions of servitude and customs that reinforce the reign of a prince. But there is one thing that puts sand in the princely engine and grinds things to a halt. That thing is a tradition of liberty. If a people are accustomed to liberty, Machiavelli writes, then they will never stop trying to regain it. Even if they haven't had it for a hundred years, the ancestral memory of liberty will be overpoweringly strong. It may be so strong that no manipulative device of the prince will be able to defeat it and he may have no other option than to destroy such a city.

Might I suggest to you that on Tuesday night we saw Americans in New Jersey and Virginia issue notice that they are not prepared to trade their liberty for hyper-statism and that they are not ready to become Europeans, always more subservient to the state than we have been, instead of free citizens of a great republic? The tradition of liberty is one of the greatest weapons we have in this struggle.

When William F. Buckley thought about the possible triumph of the United States in the Cold War, he imagined that American children would someday be thankful that "the blood of their fathers ran strong." Let our blood, too, run strong with the cherished memory of our past and present liberty.

View all comments (25) | Leave a comment

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 11:35AM

Baker --

Your analysis -- interestingly using Machiavelli's ideas -- would have more credibility if you seemed at all capable of -- say -- seeing how W used such tactics to intimidate Americans into the war in Iraq. I can't think of a modern political event more amenable to Machiavellian analysis.

Strong blood would include the ability to critique people who share your own political views. Here you just name-drop to make the same point some fool like Glenn Beck might make.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.5.09 @ 12:54PM

Mr. Baker
Thank you for the reminder. (smile) I haven't read that particular book in ummm 40 years.
Bye the way, Liberal Reader is a paid Soros activist.
His talking points are almost plagerism from Soros' organizations.
Glenn Beck got one communist fired and sent home in disgrace. I think he will nail several more czars.
Good for us.
(Of course Jones has a golden parachute from soros as well.)
I appreciated The NEA Saul Alinski sent out to teachers across the country.
http://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm
I hope it freaks you out as well...the audacity.

Charlemagne| 11.5.09 @ 11:03PM

Liberal Reader's comment is simply absurd. There is nothing in the public record to demonstrate that President Bush used Machiavellian tactics to "intimidate" Americans--unless he and others did that to Bill Clinton, the UN, the Europeans and just about everyone else who agreed on the intelligence about Saddam's regime. The Clinton Administration actually called for regime change in Iraq long before Bush came to office. Apparently Liberal Reader's disappointment that a Bush policy was enacted and succeeded is so strong he finds presidential policy and rhetoric supporting it to be "Machiavellian." Besides, Baker's piece has nothing to do with the Iraq War and doesn't mention it. Should he have also condemned other things you don't like as Machiavellian?

JohnD| 11.5.09 @ 11:47AM

W "intimidated" Americans into accepting war in Iraq? Really? I don't remember being intimidated. It is easy to forget now, as Monday morning QBs, that all of the Western Intelligence agencies believed Saddam was developing nukes, which seemed to explain why he was violating UN sanctions. The CIA believed it; MI-5 believed it; Even the Democrats in Congress believed it.

I love how the liberals claim Bush that invading Iraq, listening to terrorists phone conversations, and not giving a federal court date and free defense lawyer to every Islamist caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan, was a violation of our civil liberties; but Obama forcing us to buy health insurance or pay a fine, and threatening private citizens and entities who disagree with him, are not violations of our liberty.

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 3:18PM

John D --

Here is what I meant about W's Machiavellianism:

W genuinely believed we should invade Iraq. However, the reasons he thought we should invade Iraq were complicated and -- his administration concluded -- ultimately untenable. The people just would not have gone in for a war based upon future oil markets and the kind of complicated geopolitical scenerios that factored into W's calculations.

So, they drastically overstated the threat of Iraq's nuclear capacity.

I'm not saying they LIED about Iraq having nukes: I'm saying they spun -- with extreme, cynical manipulation -- the conclusions that ought to have been drawn from such intelligence.

They were, in effect, honestly mistaken about Iraq's actual armaments, but they used that mistaken information dishonestly to achieve an end they thought best for the country.

I'm not really making a moral judgment here; I'm saying Bush's actions were Machiavellian and it resulted in a war that's killed tens of thousands of people.

I think that's a bit more significant than the paltry and petty issues raised by this piece -- and if you were honest, you would too.

JohnD| 11.5.09 @ 3:23PM

"The people just would not have gone in for a war based upon future oil markets"

I don't buy this argument, and the subsequent post-invasion events don't bear this out.

If anything, I think Bush was terrified of another 9-11 type event involving Iraqi nukes. That they may have felt compelled to gin up support for an invasion may be true, but for oil? No, I don't believe it. If so, where is the oil?

pst314| 11.5.09 @ 3:24PM

Don't forget that Machiavelli also wrote his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, in which he argued for the superiority of Republics and explored how they should be structured.

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 3:27PM

You're right, pst314. Machiavelli should NOT be confused with the person offering advice to the prince in his most famous book.

pst314| 11.5.09 @ 3:39PM

What the heck was that supposed to mean?

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 4:28PM

Machiavelli's The Prince is not a straight up reflection of his views. There's a level of irony in the work.

I was basically supporting your post. That's all. No big deal.

pst314| 11.5.09 @ 7:15PM

Ah well, funny how easy it is to miscommunicate and to misunderstand.

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 3:25PM

Just to be clear: the causus belli for Iraq was not simply that we didn't want to see evidence of Hussein's possession of a nuclear weapon in the form of a mushroom cloud.

That was Machiavellian spin.

The calculations behind the war, I think, were remarkably diverse and complicated; they involved motives noble, cynical, thoughtful and rash.

Issues involved:

Domestic politics (Bush's reelection after his unsteady victory in 2000)

Iran

The Iraqi people's suffering under Saddam Hussein

The first Gulf War

Oil markets

Control of crucial geo-political position

Discouraging pan-Muslim alliances

Showing awesome military power after 9.11.

Vengeance for 9.11.

The possibility that Iraq might have or acquire WMD.

Increasing military spending, defense contracts.

And so on.

Conservative Reader| 11.5.09 @ 4:19PM

Liberal Reader, you are an idiot and nobody here believes you. Go crawl back under your bridge and stop polluting our discourse with your retarded rants.

JohnD| 11.5.09 @ 4:21PM

LR:

I see your point. I am not sure I agree with the premise, but I see the point you are trying to make. Some of the reasons you cite would have generated popular support.

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 6:48PM

John D --

Good of you to say so, and I'm glad you picked up on the subtler aspect of my point: that I was NOT saying that Bush "lied" to get us into that war.

Bush, I believe, genuinely believed the war needed to be fought; there were numerous forces at work pushing us into war. Some of those forces were quite admirable and noble: I do believe the president when he says that we wanted to liberate Iraq.

But I also think there were less pretty motives, and motives that would be very, very difficult to explain to the American people.

At any rate, I can't complain you didn't give me a fair hearing.

Charlemagne | 11.6.09 @ 9:37AM

Which "petty motives," of course, you cannot prove, but only assert, in response to an essay that had nothing to do with the Iraq War.

Machiavelli Reader| 11.5.09 @ 4:35PM

For the record, Machiavelli called for abandoning the real virtues under the appearances of virtue *as necessary*, not at every opportunity that presented itself. Moreover, he took a dim view of government spending and warned that any Prince who gives lots of gifts to his elites ("nobles") will have to keep paying them off at risk to his popularity and his throne.

He recommended that whenever possible, a Prince should always side with the commoners, since there are a lot more of them and their loyalty is a good hedge against any disloyalty from the nobles. He also warned against raising taxes whenever it can possibly be avoided, saying people would sooner forgive the Prince for running over their grandparents than for taking too much of their money. He indicated that winning their support can only be done gradually by keeping the taxes low and demonstrating to them that the Prince is capable of paying for any wars he may have to fight out of his own pocket, whereas losing their support is all too easy and could be done in a minute by taxing them too heavily.

In short, Machiavelli would not have approved of any modern welfare state, believing too much government spending to be disastrous for the Prince and his people alike. I'd say the state of the modern world vindicates most of his political and economic theories very nicely.

Nick| 11.5.09 @ 5:36PM

Marxist Reader,

You should write for "24". Your fiction skills are excellent.

Saddam's own generals thought they had WMDs. If they thought it was true, how can President Bush be blamed for believing it also?

This is just not logical. How was GWB supposed to know more than Saddam's generals did?

You bleeding heart libs expect the impossible from presidents with 'R's by their names, and let presidents with 'D's slide. There's a word for such behavior.

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 6:51PM

The fact is that Americans are not a war like people.

We don't like wars in this country and never really have.

Since WW II, in fact, we've pretty much had to be manipulated into wars by presidents.

The "domino theory" was used to brow-beat us into Korea and Viet Nam; WMD was used (as well as two or three other, different official explanations) to get us into Iraq.

It is something for us to be proud of; if provoked, we have the greatest military in the world. But in general, we'd prefer to trade with people or leave them alone.

I wouldn't want this to change. Machiavelli helps us understand how we can be talked into a war -- which, as some of you have pointed out, hardly exhausts the reasons we should read him.

Nick| 11.5.09 @ 8:09PM

Marxist Reader,

Great job not addressing my point. You get an "A" for deflection.

WMDs were not USED to get us into Iraq. WMDs were a FACT OF LIFE that had to be dealt with after the attacks of 9/11.

So, I ask again: How was President Bush supposed to know Saddam was lying about WMDs, when Saddam's own generals thought Iraq had them?

The "domino theory" was used to "brow-beat us into KOREA? Really?

Where did you go to undergraduate school? Who was your professor?

Or did you go to Wiki-state?

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 8:16PM

Nick,

Cheney, Bush, and Rice on separate occasions, before the war, ALL made statements indicating the necessity of invading Iraq on the basis of its possession of WMD.

Cheney and Rice -- although, interestingly, not Bush -- strongly insinuated they believed our country in danger of attack by Iraq, a threat which is impossible to believe they ever really believed to be imminent.

Now, Iraq had every reason to BLUFF about having WMD, and in fact, Hussein expressed amazement to his captors that Bush invaded.

Why would Hussein bluff? Well, you don't NEED WMD if you can convince everyone you have them, for one thing. You can get the "credit" and prestige of being a nuclear power without having to go through all the trouble of using one.

The "domino theory" was used to justify the Korean War. I don't think there's anything radical about this claim. I don't know exactly when this specific phrase was used, but by 1950 we'd moved to a containment policy with respect to the Soviet Union and China; that meant fighting in Korea against the communists.

Nick| 11.5.09 @ 8:47PM

Marxist Reader,

The question wasn't WHY Saddam would or would not bluff. I'm glad you admit he lying. If Saddam could fool his own generals, how was GWB supposed to know?

Quit obfuscating and answer the question, would you?

For the third time, how was President Bush supposed to know Saddam was lying about having WMDs, when Saddam's own generals thought they had WMDs?

The "domino theory" was put forth by President Eisenhower in 1954. You wrote it was used to "brow-beat" us INTO the Korean War, not to "justify" it. Quit moving the goalposts, okay?

You bleeding hearts just can't admit it when you're wrong, can you?

Liberal Reader| 11.5.09 @ 10:09PM

The point I'm trying to make, Nick, is that we didn't need to invade just because of WMD, and indeed that was not W's primary motive.

Iraq had no reason to attack this country and would not have done so; even if it had the weapons we thought it had, the notion they were preparing to use them against our country is absurd.

That is NOT to say there were not legitimate reasons to invade Iraq. My only point is the primary reason GIVEN by the administration was not the true causus belli.

Eisenhower may very well have coined the term -- I'll take your word for it -- but he was articulating the main principle behind containment, a policy put into place in the late 40s in response to Soviet expansionism and the fall of China to the communists.

We went to war in Korea to prevent yet another communist victory -- not just for Korea's sake, but for the region's sake.

But we know from the Pentagon Papers and many other documents that this was not the TRUE reason for Korea OR Vietnam. We know that presidential politics were central to Truman's thinking, and JFK's and Johnson's (and Bush's).

The topic here was Machiavellianism in American government, please recall.

Nick| 11.6.09 @ 12:07AM

Marxist Reader,

I know the point you were "trying" to make. It was wrong.

You wrote: "They were, in effect, honestly mistaken about Iraq's actual armaments, but they used that mistaken information dishonestly to achieve an end they thought best for the country."

How can you be "honestly mistaken" about something, and then use that "mistaken information" DISHONESTLY? How does that happen exactly?

President Bush's Administration believed in good faith that Saddam was hiding WMDs. So did Saddam's generals. So did the world.

GWB also believed this could not be allowed to continue after 9/11. So did democrats and most Americans. You libs lost that fight, remember? This is not using "information dishonestly" or in a Machiavellian way. It's called protecting the nation. It also had the sanction of U.N. resolutions.

One more time, you wrote that the domino theory was used to "BROW-BEAT" us into Korea. Next time, think before you type. You won't have to waste so much time trying to correct what you really meant.

Yes, Truman jumped into Korea because he had just lost China and was trying to defend all of FDR's Soviet spies that Sens. Nixon and McCarthy had uncovered.