On Machiavelli — Advice from Italy’s (In)famous Military Strategist
Transcript of a talk given by Professor Maurizio Viroli on Machiavelli.
Editor’s note:
shared a tweet by that brought this talk to my attention. Having been interested in Machiavelli, I obviously started watching. Professor Maurizio was captivating, and I knew that I should take notes. Being a text-first person, I tried to get the transcript of this talk but sadly none existed, so I’ve taken the liberty to transcribe the whole thing. I’ve added section headings, cleaned up the paragraphs, and cited original texts and the Italian references where relevant. I hope this is useful for all curious people interested in the application of Machiavelli to their life and business.Remarks by Professor Maurizio Viroli, February 22nd, 2017
Preamble
Thank you everyone for being here. I am very grateful to the Texas Centre Prize for this invitation. It's an honour. It's even a greater honour and the pleasure after having carefully listened to the words of Professor Philip Bobbitt1. He is absolutely right. I am sorry to confirm that I have a strong accent. I have been teaching for almost 27 years at Princeton. A friend of mine, after 15 years, said to me Maurizio, you have been here in America for 15 years and you still speak like Robert De Niro. I arrived here in 1987 with trepidation in Princeton. I gave my first preceptorial. It was the first time ever I had the opportunity to teach in teaching at Princeton. So, at the end of the semester, with great anxiety, I read the student's evaluation. She will never get over that experience. First evaluation: Professor Viroli doesn't speak English. Do not give him tenure. That was the beginning of my experience. I hope you will be patient enough.
Introduction to Machiavelli
Today I have been asked by Ms. Gail to speak of Machiavelli, Prince of Business. And of course, you all know Machiavelli. He lived in Florence between 1469 and 1527. He served the Republic of Florence. He was a high rank advisor on military and strategic matter, kind of a precursor of Professor Philip Bobbitt. He served with impeccable honesty. This must be said about him. Even the most severe critics of Machiavelli, even his most ferocious enemies could not deny that he was absolutely right. When he wrote in a letter in 1513 after he was fired from the government of Florence, he wrote, “my poverty is the evidence of my honesty”2. In 1512 he was ousted from his post because of a change in the government. And he began to write the works he is famous for: The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, The Florentine Histories, The Art of War.
What do we find in Machiavelli's works? Obviously you find a good deal of political wisdom. There is no question about it. We still read it 500 years after he passed away. But you also find in Machiavelli a rare wisdom on life or of life, that is to say the wisdom that would teach us to live a meaningful life. And as a part of his wisdom on life there is his wisdom on love and love matters. He was a true expert on this area. And the lecture I have been dreaming for years to offer is exactly Machiavelli's love and Machiavelli on love. Maybe another time.
But the problem is that he had no competence on business whatsoever. He knew nothing about it. No one was interested in business. He admits it in the letter of April 9th, 1513. He writes, “Fortune has seen to it, that since I do not know how to talk about either the silk or the wool trade, or profits or losses,” (he meant banking), “I have to talk about politics”. He even tried to impress with his poor competence on business, one of his lovers. The famous Lucrezia Lariccia, beautiful woman. He tried to impress her. But he was unsuccessful. In fact, he heard her saying, “just today, Lariccia said to me in a certain conversation that she feigned to be having with her mate: ‘wise man, wise man’”, (she was referring to Machiavelli), “I don't know what they are talking about. It seems to me they get everything wrong”. Not a flattering comment from a lover. Is there a possible way out before you all rush to Miss Gail to ask your money back?
Possibility is this: let's explore if we can apply Machiavelli wisdom on politics and life to business. Let's see, I don't know, you judge. This is not a trendy idea. We see in these days, businessmen becoming prime ministers or presidents of republics. But rarely we see political leaders becoming successful business leaders, at least not to my knowledge. I think however that we can explore the possibility of extracting from Machiavelli’s wisdom something that might be useful for business leaders.
With two qualifications, however, the first we should keep in mind that republics are not corporations. And that it is utterly unwise, indeed it is wrong, to pretend to govern free and equal citizens, the way you run a corporation. A prime minister or a president of a republic cannot pretend to be the master or the owner of the republic. The chief aim of a corporation, moreover, is to produce profit. What is the chief aim of a good republic? It is to protect the liberty and the dignity, and the security of all its citizens. And to elevate their moral and intellectual qualities. The aims are a bit different between corporations and republics.
The second qualification that I must share with you is that we have to be aware of one distinctive feature of Machiavelli's thought. That is to say that he composed his works to inspire, to instruct great political leaders. Let me stress the adjective, great political leaders, not ordinary or mediocre politicians. This means that if we want to try to use Machiavelli’s counsels, we must examine whether they might be good for great business leaders, for Princes of business, not for ordinary business persons. Machiavelli always had a particular passion for great or grand human enterprises. There is very little in his political works that might serve mediocre politicians. The same I believe, I suspect, is true also for business in general.
The Variability of Fortune
But with these qualifications in mind, let's start this exploration of Machiavelli’s ideas. Well, first of all, Machiavelli was well aware of the fact that we live in unpredictable and changing and variable world. That's what he meant when he spoke of fortune. He spoke of fortune as luck, Fortuna. He writes that3:
“this goddess is called omnipotent because whoever comes into this life, either late or early, feels her power.
She often keeps the good beneath her feet; the wicked she raises up, and if ever she promises you anything, never does she keep her promise.
She turns, states and kingdoms upside down as she pleases; she deprives the just of the good that she freely gives to the unjust.
This unstable goddess and fickle deity often sets the undeserving on a throne to which the deserving never attains.”
How should the political leader try to react, try to win against fortune? But Machiavelli first piece of advice is that if you want to succeed in politics, you must learn to adapt your way of proceeding to the nature of the times4. And you do not succeed unless your strategy is in harmony with the times. That's the first piece of advice. “This is easy to say, but”, Machiavelli adds, “difficult to put in practice because each of us has a particular nature that inclines each of us to act in a particular manner”. Some of us are inclined to be bold, others are very keen to be cautious. And it's different to change ourselves even if we perceive that it's time to change our behavior to be in harmony with the times.
How to understand your time?
Moreover, how do you understand times? Machiavelli says you have to be able to understand the times in which you are living and define your strategy accordingly. How do you do this? How do you understand if times and circumstances call for bold strategies or they call for cautious strategies? Well, unlike many contemporary experts of our times, Machiavelli maintains that there is no certain or sure formula or method that allows us to understand our times right, to get the times right. There is no formula. If there is no formula then what are we left with? How do we proceed? How can we proceed? To try to understand our times and therefore define the strategy that would make us successful in our times?
The first piece of advice that Niccolò offers us is: look at history. You can recognize your times. You can understand what kind of times you are living in, if you compare your times with previous past times. You understand by seeing the difference between your times and different times. So history is the master road to the kind of wisdom that would allow you to understand the times in which you are living and define your strategies accordingly.
The second piece of advice that Machiavelli has to offer us can be summarized like this. To understand your own times you must know the kind of people and individuals you are dealing with. You must understand whom are you dealing with, the kind of persons you are dealing with. He means by this that there are no abstract or universal motives of human behavior that are useful. If you want to understand how this leader, this person, this people, those citizens are going to behave; How do you know individuals? How do you get to know what kind of people are the people you are dealing with? The maxim then Machiavelli offers us goes like this. Judge not by the eyes, judge by the hands. Where does this story come from? It comes from a tale, a novel that was rather popular in Machiavelli's time. It's the story of the old bird and the young bird. The story goes like this: A man keeps some birds in a cage. And every day he takes one of the poor birds, he kills the bird and eats it. A young and inexperienced bird tells an older bird: look at his eyes, he's crying while he's killing our fellow bird. And the old bird responds, do not judge by the eyes, judge by the hands. Look at what he is doing, not the fact that he is crying.
The Geography of Passions
What does it mean to judge by the hands? It means that if you want to know a person and therefore the kind of times you are living in, you must know the geography of the passions of that person. Is this person aggressive? Is he dominated by fear? Is he dominated by avarice? Is he possessed by ambition? Is he possessed by desire to get revenge? That's what you need to know, if you want to know the kind of person you are dealing with. And if you get the geography of passions right, you must be able to predict how he or she is going to act and therefore you can adapt your strategy to the times. And perhaps win.
But Machiavelli also warns us that even if you know well the persons you are dealing with, if you think you know, there is some guessing, some guessing is inevitable. There is no such thing in politics as the possibility to make a decision on the basis of a complete and precise knowledge of all the relevant data. No way. You must rely on something that Machiavelli calls immaginazione, imagining. For instance, he was discussing why Ferdinand the Catholic king of Spain made an absurd deal with the king of France. So considering the person he is, considering what he has done so far. He must have signed this agreement for this reason. And then Machiavelli says, maybe there is something left to the imagination. There is no such thing as a decision that is made on the basis of a complete knowledge of the facts in politics.
Man’s Greatness is rooted in the irrational
And here, the question now becomes, is that relevant for business? Might it be relevant for business? Well, to try to offer you very few remarks on this possibility, who knows? Life is full of surprises. I have decided to consult a great business leader. And I have taken my information from “Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften” (The Man Without Qualities), Robert Musing’s famous novel. What we have there, is a very interesting discussion between Mr. Arnheim, a greatly successful, Prussian businessman, one of the wealthiest businessman of his times. He is talking to an Austrian general of the army. And he delivers this parable. He says:
“… you know, general, I do not play billiards. But let me explain to you my concept about great business decisions”. He says, “if I want to hit the ball right, if I want to make my decision on the basis of the data that I need, I must know the laws of mathematics. And the mechanics of rigid bodies. And the law of elasticity, the temperature. All possible measurings of pulses, my muscles. I am not to consider variables such as the situation of my condition of my body. But if I want to do that, it would take a lifetime before I decide how to hit the ball. No, no, no, no. I think in life we proceed differently. Well, I go up to the billiard table with a cigarette in my lips and a tune in my head. So to speak - with my hat on. And I hit the ball. That makes the decision. Why I do this? Because politics, honor, work, business, all the decisive processes in life are completed outside the scope of conscience, intelligence. All men's greatness has an irrational component, intuition.”
You make the decision how to act. Yes, based on what you know - you must try to know as much as you can. But you will never be able to know all you need in order to make the decision. Something must be left to your intuition, to your imagination.
Maintain your dignity, and choose your collaborators well
It's not a reassuring thought. But that's what Machiavelli believed. And that's what Arnheim confirms. That's what Musil tells us: things proceed in life. But what if things go bad? What if you make a mistake? And it happens, it seems to me in politics and in business that people make mistakes. Since it is utterly impossible to have the formula that guarantees you that you will win. What should you do if you lose? Well, the piece of advice that Machiavelli offers you goes like this. Strong republics and excellent men retain the same spirit and the same dignity in every fortune. So you don't despair. Just as you don't get too exalted when things go well. You keep the same spirit and the same dignity in every fortune. Why? Because if you are a true leader, when you keep the same dignity; in adverse circumstances, when you are defeated; you are admired. And then you can go back. You are admired, you are respected, and then you can win again. Another time.
Whereas if you start being vain or intoxicated, or you keep lamenting and expressing your sadness, you become un-endurable. Nobody can tolerate you, so you will not resurrect. So keep the same dignity in every fortune.
Another precious piece of advice that Machiavelli offers to princes goes like this. And I know if it is useful, you tell me. It goes like this: be extremely wise in the choice of your partners and your collaborators. It is of no little importance to a prince in his choice of ministers who are good or bad according to the prince’s intelligence. What Machiavelli says is that people judge how wise you are on the basis of the people you have chosen as your collaborators. Because then if you are good at choosing people you want to work with, it means you are wise. And what is the key, the golden rule in choosing your collaborators, your advisors, your counselors? Avoid flatterers. These are pernicious persons. Because if you surround yourself with people who always tell you how good you are, how beautiful you are, how intelligent you are, that is a sure recipe for your ruin. You should not surround yourself with flatterers. Does that apply to business? I have the sense it does.
On Loyalty
But the piece of Machiavelli, one piece of Machiavelli wisdom that I am almost positive, it does apply to business or it must apply to business. It is the stress that Machiavelli puts on the value of loyalty. He speaks of loyalty in various occasions and contexts. He speaks of loyalty for instance when he discusses the military issues. He was an expert on military issues, as you know. He speaks of auxiliary and mercenary armies. And as big armies that are not capable of defending you in adverse circumstances, you cannot expect loyalty from mercenaries or from auxiliary armies. These are armies that you get from somebody else.
But Machiavelli also tells you that loyalty is extremely important for the life of the republics and when he refers to the loyalty of the citizens. Good princes must try to obtain the loyalty of the citizens. And he explains the difference between the friendships that are gained with money - He means this: the friends that you get because you do them favors, give them money, honor, prestige, they become your friends. And the friendships that are based on the greatness and nobility of spirit. To say that friendships that you acquire because of the greatness and magnanimity of the spirit. That is to say that friendships based on the admiration of people for you, not based on the favors you have done to them. And Machiavelli stresses that the first type of friendships based on interest are not something you can rely upon because the friends that you have made by giving them money won't be there if you need them in difficult circumstances. The only friends you can count on are the friends who are your friends because they admire you. You can count on them when circumstances become difficult and hard. So pursue loyalty, strengthen loyalty, but the right kind of loyalty. I repeat it with Machiavelli: the loyalty based on the admiration that you get because of your outstanding personal qualities.
Is this idea relevant at all for business? Well, I have consulted the Harvard Business Review, what else you like and so on. And here is what I found. “The greater the loyalty company engenders among its customers, employees and suppliers and shareholders, the greater the profits it reaps” (Harvard Business Review July/August 2001)5. It’s worth considering this coincidence of views. But how do you strengthen loyalty? Well, to answer this question with Machiavelli would take some time, but I shall be short. Justice, you have to treat people justly. Reward those who deserve to be rewarded, punish those who deserve to be punished. And another way to encourage loyalty for a business leader, like a politician is to display in every circumstance, grandezza nobiltà d'animo (greatness of soul, magnanimity). Never be miserly, never be mean, never be unfaithful. That's the way you build loyalty.
Well, on this account, we have only to consider yet another advice coming from Old Niccolò that “nothing makes a prince so highly esteemed as [his] great undertakings and great actions”. Does that apply to business as well? Do you get esteem because you try great undertakings and great actions? I leave this to your meditation. And while you consider the possibility, let me move to two more pieces of advice. One is coming from the Discourses on Livy, book 3 chapter 17. “Do not empower,” that's my translation, “a person whom you have offended or hurt in the past”. Machiavelli’s words are that “one individual should not be offended and then that same one sent to an administration and governance of importance”. Why Machiavelli says this? Because if you empower a person whom you have offended or hurt in the past, this person will not serve you well because out of gratitude for the fact that you have empowered him he will remember the offences that he has suffered because of you, and he will use the power that you give him to destroy you. Another piece of wisdom. Does that apply to business? I leave this matter to your consideration.
Lessons From The Art of War
And I want to move to another rather unconventional aspect of Machiavelli’s wisdom, taken this time from military life. In The Art of War, Machiavelli writes that a great captain in military life is the one who can foretell the policies of the enemy. You see before. And Machiavelli says it is extremely difficult to predict what the enemy is going to do and is even more difficult to understand what he has done, particularly if what he has done is something that is happening before your eyes. Does that apply to business? Would not the capacity to foretell what your competitor is doing be useful? I guess it would.
And now the last piece of advice. Again, taken from Machiavelli’s writings on military matters. A great general, a great captain, a military commander must be good at speaking. Because Machiavelli writes on the power of words6:
“For this speaking takes away fear, inflames spirits, increases obstinacy, uncovers deceptions, promises rewards, shows dangers and the way to flee them, fills with hope, praises, vituperates, and does all of those things by which the human passions are extinguished or inflamed.”
Wouldn’t a business leader need to talk sometimes, to advisors, to employers, to investors? Why do you think it would? And how do you speak? We have to know how to speak with persuasive power. How do you learn this? Professor Paul Woodruff7, a great colleague and friend, can offer you plenty of counsels on how to speak with persuasive power using the rules of rhetoric. Machiavelli was a master of rhetoric. He knew how to write with persuasive power. And in order to write and speak with persuasive power, you got to be able to touch the passions of the persons who are listening to you. Do you want to motivate collaborators, or employers, or partners? Well, you must show them the profits. But also talk in ways that encourage their pride or the right ambition, their loyalty. That's what a good general should be doing, maybe also a business leader.
The Machiavellian side of Machiavelli
Well, I think that by now you have in mind a very reasonable question. But Professor, this cannot possibly be Machiavelli. What about the infamous maxims that we all know since high school about Niccolò Machiavelli? What about the maxim that goes like this:
Onde è necessario ad un principe, volendosi mantenere, imparare a potere essere non buono, ed usarlo e non usarlo secondo la necessità8.
A Prince must learn how to be able to be not good (non buono), and to use this capacity or not to use it, according to necessity.
What about this? That,
un principe… non partirsi dal bene, potendo; ma sapere entrare nel male, necessitato9.
A Prince must learn not to deviate from the path of Goodness as long as he can, but be able to enter in evil (nel male) if necessitated.
Is it... Do ideas like this apply also to business? Does a business leader need to learn how to be non buono? Machiavelli never says wicked, cattivo, [he says] non buono. Or to enter in evil, implying that you should also exit from evil, not stay all the time and live. Does this idea apply to business leaders? Or are they totally irrelevant? I think they do. I think they do. I think that one person would be excused if he or she uses deceit, fraud, corruption only, and only if, it is strictly necessary to save the republic, to save the state. To save your company if your company is useful to the community.
The Use of Fraud
Let me explain what Machiavelli means here with an example. The example is when he talks about fraud. In the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli gives you this very nice remark about fraud10:
“Although the use of fraud in every action is detestable, nonetheless in managing war it is a praiseworthy and glorious thing, and he who overcomes the enemy with fraud is praised as much as the one who overcomes it with force.”11
Fraud in every action is detestable. In every general rule it is detestable. But it is praiseworthy when you are using it with an enemy who uses fraud with you. And he goes as far as to say, that the fraud that makes you break your faith and not keep the pacts you have made, although may at some time acquire you power, it doesn't give you glory. How should we say it? Fraud is wrong. Deceit is wrong. Cruelty is wrong for Machiavelli. Even if through fraud and deceit you attain power, the word Machiavelli says – estato - you gain estate; it doesn't give you glory. But you have to, sometimes, in war. If you are fighting with an enemy that uses the same weapons, and you have no other weapons available.
I know people, you business people, you like examples. I am very bad with examples. The best they could come up with is the following. If you don’t like it, please ask Ms. Gail your money back. Suppose you want to win a contract to build a fine school in Italy. And you are competing with entrepreneurs who are connected with mafia, not an unlikely case. They will get the contract because they will cheat and bribe and use fraud. They will build a poor school that will collapse soon. What can you do? Can you bring yourself to bribe and corrupt and cheat? I think that you should struggle with this decision, you should suffer about it, you should anguish, you should not be at all happy, you should feel ashamed, but you should do it. And you know why? Because according to Niccolò Machiavelli, God is intelligent.
Machiavelli’s Intelligent God
This is a part of Machiavelli’s theory that has been really discussed. But Machiavelli assumes that God must understand. If you have broken your faith, if you have been deceitful, used fraud, because you had no other alternative. There are passages, for instance, in Machiavelli’s The Prince, in chapter 6, in which Machiavelli says,
“If you commit fraud, if you enter in evil, you can remedy your standing with God”.
And which example does Machiavelli have to offer about God pardoning and understanding leaders who have committed cruelties? Moses, that’s the example he uses. Moses was a friend of God, and Moses remained a friend of God, even after he ordered in Exodus 32, the famous massacre upon the episode of the worshipping of the cows.
Keep the Republic free and uncorrupt
It's time to conclude with an observation and a comment based on it. Machiavelli in Discourses book 2, chapter 2 has a nice line that I should cite for you. He speaks of why freedom, political liberty, produces prosperity. And why is it that ancient peoples; Romans, Athenians, loved so much their free institutions. Machiavelli notices the following: “All the towns and provinces that live freely” (i.e. to say they have a republican institution, they are not under a tyrant or under a prince), “they make great, very great profits” (grandissimi profitti). “For larger people are seen there because marriages are freer and more desirable to men, since each person willingly procreates those children he believes he can nourish.”
So in under freedom, population expands. Citizens are more willing to have children. Because a citizen “does not fear that his patrimony will be taken away, and he knows not only that [citizens] are born free and not slaves, but they can, through their virtue become princes. Riches are seen to multiply there in large numbers. Both those that come from agriculture and those that come from the arts, for each willingly multiplies that things and seeks to acquire those goods he believes he can enjoy once acquired. From which it arises that men in rivalry think of private and public advantages, and both the one and the other come to grow marvelously.”
So the idea of Machiavelli is, he offers historical evidences, that with liberty business flourishes better than under tyranny or better than in corrupt republics. What does it follow from this consideration? I think it follows this piece of advice. Keep the republic free and uncorrupt if you want to have better chances to do good business for a long period of time. But it's not only the idea of keeping your country free and uncorrupt is not only as we say in America ‘good for business’. The person who helps his or her country to remain free and uncorrupt, attains for Machiavelli the greatest measure of glory. And remember that glory for the good Niccolò was the true and most valuable goal that human beings ought to aspire to - business persons included.
Thank you for your attention.
Q/A Section of the Talk
Question from ‘Paul’: Just a brief question for clarification. Could you explain the difference between The Prince and the Discourses and Machiavelli’s aims in writing them? Because there's a slight difference there.
Thank you very much, Paul, for this fine question. The prince is a work in which Machiavelli instructs a prince. Tells a prince, more precisely, a new prince - not yet firmly established in power, what he should do in order to preserve the state. In the Discourses on Livy he instructs possible future leaders, citizens willing to commit themselves to the task of redeeming Republican institutions on what it takes to found and preserve good republics. So the aims seem to be utterly incompatible. In The Prince, he instructs a prince. In the Discourses on Livy, he instructs and inspires lovers of republican liberty. And for Machiavelli, principalities and republics cannot stay together. States can be either principalities or republics. But the two works, they, in fact, they stand very well together in my opinion. And why do they stand very well together in my opinion? Because, Paul, if you read The Prince carefully, you can see that the work ends with an exhortation to liberate Italy, in which Machiavelli invokes a redeemer of Italy. And he speaks in The Prince as a founder of a new political law. Now, redeemers and founders are also necessary for republics. So it seems to me that in The Prince, Machiavelli gives you the theory of founders and redeemers that is also useful for the Discourses on Livy. In fact, even in the Discourses on Livy, these two myths of the founder and redeemer are prominently present. I would go as far as to say that the Discourses on Livy without The Prince would be incomplete. Because you wouldn't have a theory of what it takes to found, to establish a republic and to redeem it when it is corrupted. So I would say that.
And many maxims that you find in The Prince are all present in the Discourses on Livy, although the goal and intention are different.
Question: What does Machiavelli have to say about the current situation in the United States? or choose a country, but the United States would be best.
In the United States?! That's... Well, why don't we speak about Italy? And you know why? Because, I'm an American citizen, but I was born in Italy. We... We do things first. That's not necessarily better than other people. One thing we have done first was to see a wealthy businessman who made all his money in real estate. And then he made further money with media, becoming prime minister, winning the election. His name is Silvio Berlusconi. Silvio Berlusconi has won three times the election, has been in power more or less 12 years. And I have written a book about him, translating it into English title, The Liberty of the Servants12, which I was arguing that when you have this type of leader, this extremely wealthy businessman, extremely good at persuading citizens, this person is very likely to accumulate an immense power. If you have a person with an immense power at the top of the republic, the consequences are that you have the liberty of the servants, namely the spirit of servility, acquiescence, and conformity spreads into the country. You no longer have the spirit of liberty, of the spirit of servility.
The effects are tremendous, are disastrous. When you have this kind of transition from a true republican life, small R, into a situation of quasi-principality. And at the end, actually, in the preface to the English edition of that book, I was telling to my American friends, be careful, no republic is immune from the combined power of money and media, try to learn from our (Italians) mistakes. Have you learned?
Question: In regards to this very subject though, Why did this person rise to the top? Because the media was against them, a lot of money was against them, the people were against them. So a lot of the people that were not being heard, that responded to [him]. And what you're talking about is that intuition, because his opponent had everything, the structure, the research, the money, the power, that this person did.
You're talking about the Berlusconi or Trump?
Trump.
Oh really, I had a feeling.
Having been in West Virginia, and tend to think in Ohio, and hearing people talk about their economic situation, not having a job. And as you talked about, you know, how do you maintain a republic, you let people be free, but how do you people be free that have jobs? So I think that, based on your presentation, and what has happened, sometimes it’s had a response. Which is a little crazy, it's like with Wells Fargo, where they took all those accounts, and did that against their customers? Where is that customer justice? So I just think that I appreciate what you were saying, and I think that a lot of times, that intuition you're talking about that a leader has. You could have all the quantifiable information, and the outcome is the prize, do you have some of that extra intuition? Do you see something that all these others don’t see?
That's called the political charisma, that is to say a great political leader, is exactly someone who you don't know why and how, but he or she senses what the times are. And he's capable of saying the right words with the right tone of voice, so that he or she gets the consensus. But as to the loyalty, I know that loyalty is not exactly what many corporations, even I know, that pursue. But I still think that if I were a leader of a corporation, I would love to work with partners and customers who feel loyal to me, and therefore, even if I do something wrong, if the market goes wrong, if I find difficult circumstances, they won't exit, they won't abandon me instantly.
So I think that even if it is unpopular, it goes against the prevailing trend, I think the idea that you should pursue loyalty is valuable, both in politics, and in business, in politics for sure. Because there are, as Machiavelli knew very well, ther are political situations that are subject to the whims of fortune. You cannot predict whether or not you will, as a people, have to face extremely difficult circumstances, and if you do not build the loyalty to Republican and Democratic institutions, then you are vulnerable to the demagogues who can mobilize frustrated, unsatisfied, angry citizens against institutions. It has already happened in the 20s, in Europe. The results were terrifying.
And it’s happening currently too. Don’t you think there’s a rise against institutions because of corruption and lack of..
Exactly, exactly. Please, you should repeat this question. It is important.
The question/comment is around institutions, and Machiavelli pointed out, we are supposed to do good deeds as leaders, and if the institutions are no longer listening, and the feeling, and you’re seeing across Western Europe and the US, there is a general consensus that the institutions no longer listen or serve. So, when that happens, we are going to have tremendous turmoil.
I would suggest you to consider your argument under a very precise title. The name is Nationalism, is the disaffection of citizens, for existing Republican or Democratic institutions, on behalf of what? Either, the desire to expel everyone, the groups, the cultures, the religions, that many citizens believe do not belong to their culture, and they are threatening their culture. Expelling immigrants, or, or, attain enormous national power is called greatness.
Nationalism, has always had the capacity to turn frustrations, anxieties about persistent political and moral corruption, or the inefficiency of institutions into an aggressive mode against democratic institutions.
So, the short answer to your question is, yes, I do worry, and I do worry a lot, because, like Niccolò, I look at history. We have already seen this. It only takes a few demagogues, and you will see France, Britain, Germany, Italy, turning [into] nationalistic countries with the consequences that you can imagine. Would America be safe? Is America safe from the winds of Nationalism? Thank God in America - I don't know if Paul agrees - I think there is a type of patriotism that might save us from nationalism, but who knows? The danger exists, and political leaders and business leaders should remember that they should repair the situation before it's too late. One more question?So, the short answer to your question is, yes, I do worry, and I do worry a lot, because, like Niccolò, I look at history. We have already seen this. It only takes a few demagogues, and you will see France, Britain, Germany, Italy, turning [into] nationalistic countries with the consequences that you can imagine. Would America be safe? Is America safe from the winds of Nationalism? Thank God in America - I don't know if Paul agrees - I think there is a type of patriotism that might save us from nationalism, but who knows? The danger exists, and political leaders and business leaders should remember that they should repair the situation before it's too late. One more question?
Yes, I'd like to go back to the time of Machiavelli, and my question is, when I read his works, should I consider him / these ideas coming from a community that he put together and wrote about, or was he a true scientist / kind of working these out on his own?
Both, he was taking many concepts and beliefs that were shared concepts and shared beliefs in his own time. One of which was the idea that the Republican self-government is preferable to princely government. Another idea was the persuasion that unless you have virtue, you cannot have Republican life. Another persuasion (that is the last I’m going to cite) was this particular type of religious sentiment that Machiavelli experienced in his own Florence. It was a religious sentiment based on the principle that if you want to be a good Christian, you must be a good citizen. That a good Christian is someone who serves the common good. Therefore, if you want to be a good citizen, you must serve the common good.
Machiavelli shared this idea, even though he was extremely critical of the corruption of the church and, of course, he had plenty of reasons to be critical about the corruption of the Italian church in those days. Oh, boy, I would love to give you some examples of what was going on in the Vatican those days. But it is too spicy a matter, I will discuss it later.
But sometimes Machiavelli was taking a different road, and he knew that. And where he was extremely, I would say, innovative, was on this issue that the prince should be able, must be able to enter in evil and to learn not to be good. Many others had said that, in private discussions, in restricted council meetings, but they had never put it in writing the way Machiavelli did. And also Machiavelli was going in a rather original direction when he asserted two principles. And he said, if you want a republic, it has to be popular and not aristocratic. You must entrust the guardianship of liberty to the ordinary citizens, not to the nobles. And the second piece of advice that he said, well, we know that if you want to have a large republic with citizens who are employed in the army, you are going to have social conflicts. And he concludes against the prevailing wisdom of the time that social conflicts, as long as they remain within the boundaries of civil life, they do not hurt liberty instead they reinforce it.
Professor at UT Law. University profile.
Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori, December 10, 1513, in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere, vol. 2, ed. Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), p. 297; Eng. trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, ed. and trans. James B. Atkinson and David Sices (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), p. 265
From ‘Tercets on Fortune’ in Volume II of The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham, N C: Duke University Press, 1965)
Reminds me of a statement Joshua Cooper Ramo asks in his books, “What is the nature of our age?” See this NYT review of his book The Age of the Unthinkable.
For sake of clarity I have used the Christopher Lynch translation of this passage from Book Four of The Art of War.
Professor Paul Woodruff passed away in September 2023. Here’s a link to his official university profile.
Full Italian text from Chapter XV of The Prince. (Oxford Clarendon Press, Il Principe 1891)
Full Italian text from Chapter XVIII of The Prince (ibid)
This is in Book III, Chapter 40.
I have kept here the full translation by Harvey Mansfield (this is the edition Professor Viroli is holding in his hand - Machiavelli, N., Mansfield, H. C., & Tarcov, N. (1996). Discourses on Livy. University of Chicago Press)
Available in an English translation from Princeton University Press.