Machiavelli

MACHIAVELLI is known as the father of modern political science. He is a transitional figure standing midway between the medieval and modern political thought. He was a historian who laid the foundations of a new science of politics by integrating contemporary history with ancient past. He commanded a sinister reputation as no other thinker in the annals of political theory. The initial reaction to Machiavelli’s writing was one of shock and he himself was denounced as an inventor of the devil. This was because Machiavelli sanctioned the use of deception, cruelty, force, violence and the like for achieving the desired political ends. Spinoza regarded him as a friend of the people for having exposed the Prince. Montesquieu regarded him as a lover of liberty, an image that emerged in the Discourses and not from the Prince.

Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469. He was the third child in a family that was neither rich nor aristocratic, but well connected with the city’s famed humanistic circles. Florence was economically prosperous but suffered a long period of civil strife and political disorder. His father Berando, a civil lawyer, held several important public appointments. Besides his legal practice, Bernado also received rents from his land, making his family financially comfortable’ Bernado took considerable interest in the education of his son. At the age of 29, Machiavelli entered the public service in the government of Florence. Later he was sent on a diplomatic mission to several foreign countries where he acquired firsthand experience of Political and diplomatic matters. Although not employed on the highest level of policy making, he was close enough to the inner circles of the administration to acquire firsthand knowledge of the mechanics of politics. In 1512, he lost his job when the republican government, based on French support was replaced by the absolute regime of the Medici, who has been restored to power with papal help. Machiavelli was accused of serious crimes and tortured, but he was found innocent and banished to his small farm near Florence. It was in such enforced leisure that he wrote the Prince (1513). The book was dedicated to the Medici family, Lorenzo II de Medici (1492-1519), Lorenzo the Maginificient’s grandson. The Prince explored the causes of the rise and fall of states and the factors for political success. As Gramsci has rightly pointed out, the basic thing the Prince is that it is not a systematic treatment , but a ‘live’ work, in which political ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic form of a myth’ The most elaborated work of Machiavelli is the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (1521). Taking Roman history as a starting point, the Discourses attempts to dissect the anatomy of body politic, and on a much more philosophical and historical foundation than that of the Prince.

For all its breadth and elaborateness, the Discourse is of interest primarily to students of political philosophy, whereas the Prince is destined to remain one of the half dozen political writings that have entered the general body of world literature. According to William Ebenstein, the Prince is “a reflection not only on man’s political ambitions and passions but of man himself. The most revolutionary aspect of the Prince is not so much what it says as what it ignores. Before Machiavelli, all political writing - from Plato and Aristotle through the middle ages to the Renaissance had one central question: the end of the state. Machiavelli ignores the issue of the end of the state in extra political terms. He assumes that power is an end in itself and he confines his inquires into the means that are best suited to acquire retain, and expand power.

CHURCH VS STATE CONTROVERSY

Middle Ages roughly mean the period between the Gregorian movement of the 11th century and the beginning of the protestant reformation movement. Medieval political theory was dominated by the ideal of unity as taught by the ancient Roman Empire. There was a general belief in a centralized secular power and a centralized ecclesiastical power. Even the state and the Church were fused into one system and represented two different aspects of the same society. The function of the universal empire was to help the growth of a universal church. When the struggle between papacy and the Holy Roman Empire broke out, the defenders of both quoted scriptures in support of their claims.

In the days when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the emperor was the head of both the state and the church; but the church grew more and more strong and began to exercise the right of excommunication. This right of excommunication was a powerful weapon in the hands of the church. Thus ecclesiastical authority began to interfere with and control secular authority. When the Holy Roman Empire was created, no attempt was made to define the relations between the emperor and the pope. It was impossible to determine whether the emperor derived his authority immediately from God or immediately through the pope.

The clash between the two began in the 11th century with the reforms of Gregory VIII who decreed that ‘no ecclesiastic should be invested with the symbols of office by a secular ruler under penalty of excommunication’. This decree led to a conflict between emperor Henry IV and Gregory. This contest between the papacy and the empire lasted for about two centuries when at last the papacy came out victorious as the unrivalled head of western Christendom. The papacy was strongest in the 13th century under Innocent III. By the 14th century the king had become strong, and feudalism, the main support of the church, had become somewhat weakened.

IMPACT OF RENAISSANCE

Machiavelli was very much a creature of the Renaissance, his native city of Florence being then the centre of Italian Renaissance. As mentioned above, in the Middle Ages, the church and the state were closely interrelated; the church on the whole dominated the state and profoundly influencing the political philosophy of the latter. The Renaissance impelled men to reexamine things from other than clerical point of view. It was possible now to formulate political theories on a purely secular basis and Machiavelli is the chief exponent of this schools of thought.

Renaissance ushered in rationalism which viewed God, man and nature from the stand point of reason and not faith. The international conflict, following geographical discoveries, produced the concepts of nationalism and nation- state which went against medieval universalism in church and state. The most important discovery of the Renaissance- more significant than any single work of art or any one genius was the discovery of man. 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. Displacing God man becomes the centre of the universe, the value of this new solar system are inevitably different from those of the God centered universe.

The Renaissance signified a rebirth of the human spirit in the attainment of liberty, self confidence and optimism. In contradiction to the medieval view, which had envisaged the human being as fallen and depraved in an evil world with the devil at the centre, the Renaissance captured the Greek ideal of the essential goodness of individual. This return to a pre- Christian attitude towards humans, god and nature found expression in all aspects of human endeavour and creativity. The Renaissance signaled the breakdown of a unified Christian society. Among the centers of Renaissance, Florence was always first, reaching its climax in Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who most perfectly represented and lived, the Renaissance ideal of universal man.

Attitude towards Religion

The novelty in Machiavelli’s writings was his attitude towards religion and morality, which distinguished from all those who preceded him. He was scathing in his attack on the church and its church for their failure to provide moral aspiration. He wrote thus: We Italians then owe to the Church of Rome and her priests our having become irreligious and bad, but we owe her a still greater debt and one that will be the cause of our ruin, namely that the church has kept and still keeps our country divided. ‘

Machiavelli was anti- church and anti clergy, but not anti religion. He considered religion as necessary not only for man’s social life but also for the health and prosperity of the state. It was important within a state because of the influence it wielded over political life in general. Machiavelli’s attitude towards religion was strictly utilitarian. It was a social force; it played a pivotal role because it appealed to the selfishness of man through its doctrine of reward and punishment, thereby inducing proper behaviour and good conduct that was necessary for the well-being of a society. Religion determined the social and ethical norms and values that governed human conduct and actions.

According to William Ebenstein, Machiavelli’s views on morals and religion illustrate his belief in the supremacy of power over other social values. He has so sense of religion as a deep personal experience, and the mystical element in religion - its supernatural and supranational character is alien to his outlook. Yet he has a positive attitude toward religion; albeit his religion becomes a tool of influence and control in the hands of the ruler over the ruled. Machiavelli sees in religion the poor man’s reason, ethics, and morality put together and ‘where religion exists it is easy to introduce armies and discipline’

The role of religion as a mere instrument of political domination, cohesion and unity becomes even clearer in Machiavelli’s advice that the ruler support and spread religious doctrines and beliefs in miracles that he knows to be false. Machiavelli’s interest in Christianity is not philosophical or theological , but purely pragmatic land political. He is critical of Christianity because “it glorifies more the humble and contemplative men than the men of action”, whereas the Roman pagan religion defied only men who had achieved great glory, such as commanders of republics and chiefs of republics’ Machiavelli argues that “Christianity idealises humility, lowliness, and a contempt for wordly objects as contrasted with the pagan qualities of grander of soul, strength of body, and other qualities, that render men formidable”.

Concerning the church, Machiavelli preferred two main charges. First, he states that the Italians have become’ irreligiou’s and bad’ because of the evil example of the court of Rome’. The second and more serious accusation is that the church ‘has kept and still keeps our country divided’. He goes on to say that the sole cause of Italian political disunity is the church. Having acquired jurisdiction over a considerable portion of Italy “she has never had sufficient power or courage to enable her to make herself sole sovereign of all Italy”.

Machiavelli distinguished between pagan and Christian moralities, and chose paganism. He did not condemn Christian morality, nor did he try to redefine the Christian conception of a good person. He dismissed the Christian view that an individual was endowed with a divine element and a supernatural end. He also rejected the idea of absolute good. He observed: Goodness is simply that which sub serves on the average or in the long run, the interests of the mass of individuals. The terms good and evil have no transcendental reference. They refer to the community considered as an association of individuals and to nothing else.

Though Machiavelli was critical of Christianity, he retained the basic Christian views on the differences between good and evil. For instance, he regarded murdering one’s co-citizens, betraying one’s friends, disloyalty and irreligiousness as lack of virtue not entitled to glory. Machiavelli was clear that Italy needed a religion similar to one that ancient Roman had, a religion that taught to serve the interest of the state. He was categorical that Florentines needed political and military virtues which Christian faith did not impart.

Machiavelli’s attitude to religion and morality made him highly controversial. Strauss characterized him as a teacher of evil. Prof. Sabine saw him as being amoral. It is beyond dispute that Machiavelli separated religion from politics and set the tone for one of the main themes of modern times, namely secularization of thought and life. Though conscious of the importance of religion as a cementing force in society, he was hostile towards Christianity and looked upon the Roman Catholic Church as the main adversary. He espoused hostility towards religion, considering he was writing in Italy prior to the Reformation.

Modern Secular Nation State

One of the major contributions of Machiavelli is that he separated religion from politics and set the tone for one of the main themes of modern times, namely secularisation of thought and life. Machiavelli criticised the church of his day precisely for political and not religious reasons. He recognised that the existence of the papal state and its ceaseless struggle to dominate political affairs was a primary cause of Italy’s inability to unite into one political unit.

Though culturally vibrant and creative, Italy remained politically divided, weak, and a prey to the imperial ambitions of the French, German and Spanish. All of them were unable to unite the entire peninsula. The Florentine Republic reflected severe factional conflicts and institutional breakdown Italians could not reconcile to the fact that an age of heightened cultural creativity and scientific discoveries coincided with loss of political liberty leading to foreign domination. As Prof. Sabine has rightly pointed out, Italian society, intellectually brilliant and artistically creative more emancipated than many in Europe… was a prey to the worst political corruption and moral degradation’. It produced some great minds and intellectuals of that period like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Santi Raphael. Its galaxy of artists made Renaissance Italy compared to Athens of the 5th century B.C. However, While Athens flourished politically with a vibrant participatory democracy, in Italy there was a political vacuum.

Writing at a time of political chaos and moral confusion, Italian unification became the chief objective for Machiavelli, who could see clearly the direction that political evolution was taking throughout Europe. He desired to redeem Italy form servitude and misery. Like Dante he dreamt of a united regenerated and glorious Italy. In order to achieve this, any means, were justified, for the purpose was the defense and preservation of the state and its people. Thus freedom of the country and the common good remained the core themes of Machiavelli’s writings. A perfect state, according to Machiavelli, was one promoted the common good, namely the observance of laws, honouring women , keeping public offices open to all citizens on grounds of virtue, maintaining a moderate degree of social equality, and protecting industry, wealth and property.

Machiavelli is perhaps the first political thinker who used the words state in the sense in which it is used nowadays, that is something having a definite territory, population, government and sovereignty of its own. It was on Machiavelli’s concept of a sovereign, territorial and secular state that Bodin and Grotius built up a theory of legal sovereignty which was given a proper formulation by John Austin. In other words, Machiavelli gave the state its modern connotation. His state is the nation free from religious control. He has freed the state from the medieval bondage of religion. Machiavelli almost identifies the state with the ruler. The state being the highest forms of human association has supreme claim over men’s obligations.

In both ‘Prince and Discourses’ Machiavelli insists on the necessity of extending the territory of the state. According to him, either a state must expand or perish. His idea of the extension of the dominion of state did not mean the blending of two or more social or political organisations, but the subjection of a number of states under the rule of a single Prince or common wealth. Roman state and its policy of expansion perhaps set and ideal before Machiavelli. Force of arms was necessary for both for political aggrandisement as well as for the preservation of states but force must be applied judiciously combined with craft.

POLITICAL REALISM

Machiavelli is regarded as the father of modern political science and the first realist in western political thought. He was a student of practical and speculative politics. A realist in politics he cared little for political philosophy as such. His writings expound a theory of the art of government rather than a theory of the state. He was more concerned with the actual working of the machinery of government than the abstract principles of the state and its constitution. As Prof. C.C Maxey has rightly pointed out ‘his passion for the practical as against the theoretical undoubtedly did much to rescue political thought from the scholastic obscuratism of the middle ages.’

Machiavelli was the first to state and systematically expose the power view of politics, laying down the foundations of a new science in the same way as Galileo’s Dynamics became the basis of the modern science of nature. Machiavaelli identified politics as the struggle for the acquisition, maintenance and consolidation of political power, an analysis developed by Thomas Hobbes and Harrington in the 17th century, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the 18th century Pareto Mosca and Robert Michels in the 19th century, and Robert A Dhal, David Easton, Hans J. Morgenthau Morton A Kaplan etc in the 20th century.

Machiavelli’s writings do not belong to the domain of political theory, He wrote mainly of the mechanics of government, of the means by which the states may be made strong, of the policies by which they can expand their power and of the errors that lead to their decay and destruction. Prof. Dunning called Machiavellian philosophy as “the study of the art of government rather than a theory of state”.

The Prince of Machiavelli is the product of the prevailing conditions of his time in his country, Italy. As it is not an academic treatise or value oriented philosophy; it is in real sense real politik. It is a memorandum on the art of government, is pragmatic in character and provides technique of the fundamental principles of states craft for a successful ruler. It deals with a machinery of government which the successful ruler can make use of it.

Chapter XVIII of the ‘Prince’ gives Machiavelli’s ideas of the virtues which a successful ruler must possess. Integrity may be theoretically better than collusion, but cunningness and subtlety are often useful. The two basic means of success for a prince are the judicious use of law and physical force. He must combine in himself rational as well as brutal characteristic, a combination of lion and fox. The ruler must imitate the fox and lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from the traps and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves”. A prudent ruler, according to Machiavelli, ought not to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interest and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist.

Machiavelli takes a radically pessimistic view of human nature and his psychological outlook is intimately related to his political philosophy. The individual according to Machiavelli was wicked, selfish and egoistic. He was fundamentally weak, ungrateful, exhibitionist, artificial, anxious to avoid danger and excessively desirous of gain. Lacking in honesty and justice, he was ready to act in a manner that was detrimental to the community. Being essentially anti social , selfish and greedy, the individual would readily forgive the murder of his father but never the seizure of property.; the individual was generally timid, averse to new ideas and complaints Machiavelli conceived human beings as being basically restless, ambitious, aggressive and acquisitive, in a state of constant trifle and anarchy. Interestingly, Machiavelli presumed that human nature remained constant, for history moved in a cyclical way, alternating between growth and decay.

According to Machiavelli, state actions were not to be judged by individual ethics. He prescribes double standard of conduct for statesmen and the private citizens. The moral code of conduct applicable to individuals cannot be applied to the actions of state. The ruler is the creator of law as also of morality, for moral obligations must ultimately be sustained by law and the ruler is not only outside the law, he is outside morality as well. There is no standard to judge his acts except the success of his political expedience for enlarging and perpetuating the power of his state. It was always working for an individual to commit crime, even to lie but sometimes good and necessary for the ruler to do so in the interest of the state. Similarly, it is wrong for a private individual to kill but not for the state to execute someone by way of punishment. Machiavelli strongly believes that a citizen acts for himself and as such is also responsible for his action, whereas the state acts for all.

Like other realists after him, Machiavelli identifies “power politics with the whole of political reality” and he thus fails

to grasp that ideas and ideals can become potent facts in the struggle for political survival. In the wards of William Ebenstein, Machiavellian realists are usually realistic and rational in the choice of means with which they carry out their schemes of aggrandisement and expansion. Because Machiavelli was interested only in the means of acquiring, retaining, and expanding power, and not in the end of the state, he remained unaware of the relations between means and ends. Ends lead to existence apart from means but are continuously shaped by them. As one examines the references to rulers in the Prince more closely, one finds that Machiavelli was not interested in all forms of state or in all forms of power. What fascinated him above all was the dynamics of illegitimate power; he was little interested in states whose authority was legitimate but was primarily concerned with “new dominions both as to prince and state”. He realised that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. His primary concern with founders of new governments and state illuminates his attitude on the use of unethical means in politics. Thus, Machiavelli was little interested in the institutional framework of politics.

AN ASSESSMENT

Machiavelli’s political theories were not developed in a systematic manner; they were mainly in the form of remarks upon particular situations. According to Prof. Sabine, the ‘character of Machiavelli and the true meaning of his philosophy have been one of the enigmas of modern history. ‘He has been represented as an utter cynic, and impassioned patriot, an ardent nationalist, a political Jesuit, a convinced democrat, and unscrupulous seeker after the favour of despots. In each of their views, incompatible as they are, there is probably an element of truth. Many political thinkers drew their inspiration and further developed solid and most important political concepts such as the concept of the state and its true meaning from Machiavelli. As Prof. Sabine has pointed out, “Machiavelli more than any other political thinker created the meaning that has been attached to the state in modern political usage”.

Machiavelli is regarded as the father of modern political theory and political science. Apart from theorising about the state he also given meaning to the concept of sovereignty. Machiavelli’s importance was in providing an outlook that accepted both secularisation and a moralisation of politics. He took politics out of context of theology, and subordinated moral and subordinated moral principles to the necessities of political existence and people’s welfare. The absence of religious polemics in Machiavelli led the theorists who followed to confront issues like order and power in strictly political terms. Thus Machiavelli was the first who gave the idea of secularism. The Machiavellian state is to begin within a complete sense, and entirely secular state.

Machiavelli was the first pragmatist or realist in the history of political thought. His method and approach to problems of politics were guided by common sense and history’ His ideas were revolutionary in nature and substance and he brought politics in line with political practice. By empathising the importance of the study of history, Machiavelli established a method that was extremely useful. Gramsci praised the greatness of Machiavelli for separating politics from ethics. In the ‘Prison Notebooks’ there were a number of references to Machiavelli, and Gramsci pointed out that the protagonist of the new prince in modern times could not be an individual hero, but a political party whose objective was to establish a new kind of state. Though critical of the church and Christianity Machiavelli was born and died a Christian. His attack on the church was due to his anti clericalism, rather than being anti - Religion.