The Nice Machiavelli

Indeed imagine an interview for a leadership position. One of those inane questions beloved by people who have no idea how to interview is: “What is your leadership style?” Imagine someone answering, “I am Machiavellian.” Is there any chance that person gets hired?

(I am now going to spend the next few years trying to convince a Mount Holyoke student to use that line in a job interview just to see what happens. Suggestions welcome on how to persuade someone to do this.)

Set aside for a moment whether the popular impression of Machiavelli is entirely fair. (It isn’t.) Think for a moment about Machiavelli’s other book. It is vastly less well known. Discourses on Livy.

Instead, we all (tout le monde) are enamored with Republics, those societies where you get to select your leaders. And, Conventional Wisdom (that tautologically wise interpreter of all things) says that Discourses on Livy is about being a ruler in a Republic. To lead in a Republic, you can’t be a, well, Machiavellian Prince. You have to like freedom and other good things.

What does Discourses on Livy actually say? Therein lies a tale.

The Prince is a crisp book. Fun to read, easy to see the point. Discourses on Livy is a sprawling 300 page dense examination of the Roman Republic/Empire, full of endlessly minute details and stories, some of which are accurately told and some of which are, well, not. The tales are sometimes followed by a whole bunch of advice on an array of minute subjects.

In the end, you have a book which for the casual reader (i.e., not the Machiavelli experts) is one of those endurance tests which are worth reading because just often enough there is a sentence or a paragraph of such clever insight that you think it is worth continuing. You just keep hoping the whole time that the tone of the book will change and just get to something crisper, something that reminds you of the experience of reading The Prince, but this time it will be about how to be a nice ruler in a nice Republic and not a manual for being a reprehensible Machiavellian prince.

I was at a conference not too long ago which was about this book. About a third of the way in, I was annoyed at the endless small details and observations, which never quite seemed to fit together into a whole. I was wondering why in the world Machiavelli never bothered to write a short summary articulating his main point which would at least give some hints about why he included these stories of Rome and these observations.

Then it hit me. Machiavelli did write the executive summary of Discourses on Livy. He wrote the short version for the Busy Ruler who doesn’t have the time to read 300 pages of Roman anecdotes. He entitled the executive summary: The Prince.

At the moment that realization hit, the clouds lifted and suddenly Discourses on Livy made total sense. Instead of trying to figure out how Machiavelli is saying different things in these two books, look at how at the heart of books, they are really arguing exactly the same thing. They are both manuals on how to get and keep power.

What is the difference between Principalities and Republics? Machiavelli doesn’t hide that:

For it is seen that two virtuous princes in succession are sufficient to acquire the world, as were Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. A republic should do so much more, as through the mode of electing it has not only two in succession but infinite most virtuous princes who are successors to one another. This virtuous succession will always exist in every well-ordered republic.

The fundamental difference between these two government forms is simply how long they will last.

Now imagine you are the ambitious type. Imagine you want to rule a country and you want to set that country up so that 500 years later people in that country will still talk about you and how amazing you were and you will have monuments to you all over town and your picture will be on the currency. What should you do? Obviously, according to Machiavelli, if you can set up a Republic, then that is the better route because people will praise you for a very, very long time.

How do you set up a Republic?

This should be taken as a general rule: that it never or rarely happens that any republic or kingdom is ordered well from the beginning or reformed altogether anew outside its old orders unless it is ordered by one individual. Indeed it is necessary that one alone give the mode and that any such ordering depend on his mind. So a prudent orderer of a republic, who has the intent to wish to help not himself but the common good, not for his own succession but for the common fatherland, should contrive to have authority alone…

There it is. If you want to craft a Republic, then you start out by getting complete power and ordering the society exactly the way you want it to be ordered. If you want to be a Prince, by the way, you do exactly the same thing.

But, Conventional Wisdom rushes in to argue with this crazy argument that The Prince and Discourses on Livy are really the same book: “This is not right because Machiavelli makes another distinction between Republics and Principalities. Look at that passage just quoted; he talks about the common good! Republics have freedom and freedom is important because it is better to be free. The prince doesn’t care about freedom. Republics preserve freedom. So, Discourses on Livy about rulers in free societies is totally different than The Prince about rulers in unfree societies.”

Yes, Machiavelli talks a lot about how important it is to preserve the freedom of the population. For example:

Besides this, the common utility that is drawn from a free way of life is not recognized by anyone while it is possessed: this is being able to enjoy one’s things freely, without any suspicion, not fearing for the honor of wives and that of children, not to be afraid for oneself.

There is also this on how to avoid the hatred of the population:

This he will always do if he abstains from the property of his citizens and his subjects, and from their women; and if he also needs to proceed against someone’s life, he must do it when there is suitable justification and manifest calls for it.

So, as both passages make painfully clear, freedom is really important. As both passages say quite explicitly, if you want to be a great ruler, don’t take away people’s property or family.

But, look again at those two passages above about the importance of preserving freedom if you want to be a Great Ruler. Only one of them is from Discourses on Livy. The other is from The Prince. Can you tell which is which?

Should you read Discourses on Livy? Sure, if you have already read The Prince enough times to feel like you have a good handle on it and want to see the further development of the argument. When you read it, though, don’t get bogged down in the wealth of stories. Just go along for the ride and watch Rome grow and see the advice Machiavelli is giving you and imagine creating your own Republic.

Seriously. Imagine creating a Republic. It is a useful exercise. In doing so, you will realize two things. First, what is it that would make the perfect government, the perfect society? And second, do the means you would have to use to create that perfect society justify the ends of having that society? Those are not rhetorical questions.