Samuel Damren
This is the second commentary in a series examining Niccolo Machiavelli’s analysis of the challenges facing just political institutions, past and present, and his admonitions regarding the steps needed to preserve their continuity.
Machiavelli is a controversial figure from the Italian Renaissance. He combined political experience in the chancery of Florence with noted scholarship and literary skill. By the end of his life, Machiavelli enjoyed greater recognition across Italy as an accomplished dramatist and poet than for the political works for which he is known today.
One of Machiavelli’s original contributions to political theory, contained in “The Discourses on the Ten Books of Livy,” concerns discord. Contrary to the accepted views of other contemporary historians, Machiavelli contended that “disturbances between nobles and the plebeians … were the primary cause of Roman liberty” in the Golden Age of the empire.
The assertion arose from Machiavelli’s more generalized observation that “in every republic there are two different tendencies, that of the people and that of the upper class, and that all of the laws which are passed in favor of liberty are born from the rift between the two.”
In the ancient Roman republic, that “rift” resulted in the creation of separate consuls and tribunes: one selected by Senate nobles and the other selected by a plebeian assembly. These officials could exercise power in enforcing and proposing laws, but they also could obstruct the powers of one another.
As a consequence, Machiavelli argued that the “people” and the “upper class” were forced to debate, discuss, and productively negotiate proposed laws to the satisfaction of each other. The process was not simply the product of acknowledged mutual dependency.
To ensure the integrity of the process, tribunes were granted the “power to indict citizens … when they commit any kind of offense against free government” as well as the complementary power “to punish those who make false accusations.”
These powers were routinely exercised during the period where Machiavelli conceived Rome as the “perfect republic.” Without such institutional powers, factions would be permitted, and encouraged, in Machiavelli’s view, to corrupt forums of government where “wise men” had the opportunity to bring just resolution to political discord.
Machiavelli places significant blame for the erosion of these values and the undermining of critical institutions in ancient Rome on the failure of succeeding emperors to place stewardship of the republic ahead of personal ambition. He is far more caustic in his literary denunciations of the desire of factions in Italy’s 16th century elites to be “worshipped” rather than govern and thereby “become stained with every sort of filth.”
In one of his famous plays, “The Art of War,” Machiavelli directs his protagonist, Fabrizio Colonna, to deride such “princes” — “They believed it was sufficient to be able to think up a clever riposte … to display wit and quickness in speech; to know how to concoct a scam; to adorn oneself with precious stones and gold; to slumber and dine in greater luxury than anyone else; to keep plentiful lascivious pleasures at hand; to treat one’s subjects with avarice and arrogance; to become enfeebled with indolence; to award military promotions in exchange for favors; to display contempt if anyone showed some praiseworthy way; and to want their words to be accepted as the responses of oracles.”
Similar disturbances in MAGA politics now work to corrupt American political institutions.
The next commentary in this series presents Machiavelli’s views on the Roman office of dictator. And yes, they had such an office in ancient Rome; but no, it is not what you think.
Machiavelli is a controversial figure from the Italian Renaissance. He combined political experience in the chancery of Florence with noted scholarship and literary skill. By the end of his life, Machiavelli enjoyed greater recognition across Italy as an accomplished dramatist and poet than for the political works for which he is known today.
One of Machiavelli’s original contributions to political theory, contained in “The Discourses on the Ten Books of Livy,” concerns discord. Contrary to the accepted views of other contemporary historians, Machiavelli contended that “disturbances between nobles and the plebeians … were the primary cause of Roman liberty” in the Golden Age of the empire.
The assertion arose from Machiavelli’s more generalized observation that “in every republic there are two different tendencies, that of the people and that of the upper class, and that all of the laws which are passed in favor of liberty are born from the rift between the two.”
In the ancient Roman republic, that “rift” resulted in the creation of separate consuls and tribunes: one selected by Senate nobles and the other selected by a plebeian assembly. These officials could exercise power in enforcing and proposing laws, but they also could obstruct the powers of one another.
As a consequence, Machiavelli argued that the “people” and the “upper class” were forced to debate, discuss, and productively negotiate proposed laws to the satisfaction of each other. The process was not simply the product of acknowledged mutual dependency.
To ensure the integrity of the process, tribunes were granted the “power to indict citizens … when they commit any kind of offense against free government” as well as the complementary power “to punish those who make false accusations.”
These powers were routinely exercised during the period where Machiavelli conceived Rome as the “perfect republic.” Without such institutional powers, factions would be permitted, and encouraged, in Machiavelli’s view, to corrupt forums of government where “wise men” had the opportunity to bring just resolution to political discord.
Machiavelli places significant blame for the erosion of these values and the undermining of critical institutions in ancient Rome on the failure of succeeding emperors to place stewardship of the republic ahead of personal ambition. He is far more caustic in his literary denunciations of the desire of factions in Italy’s 16th century elites to be “worshipped” rather than govern and thereby “become stained with every sort of filth.”
In one of his famous plays, “The Art of War,” Machiavelli directs his protagonist, Fabrizio Colonna, to deride such “princes” — “They believed it was sufficient to be able to think up a clever riposte … to display wit and quickness in speech; to know how to concoct a scam; to adorn oneself with precious stones and gold; to slumber and dine in greater luxury than anyone else; to keep plentiful lascivious pleasures at hand; to treat one’s subjects with avarice and arrogance; to become enfeebled with indolence; to award military promotions in exchange for favors; to display contempt if anyone showed some praiseworthy way; and to want their words to be accepted as the responses of oracles.”
Similar disturbances in MAGA politics now work to corrupt American political institutions.
The next commentary in this series presents Machiavelli’s views on the Roman office of dictator. And yes, they had such an office in ancient Rome; but no, it is not what you think.
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