There is today an entire school of political philosophers who see Machiavelli as an intellectual freedom fighter, a transmitter of models of liberty from the ancient to the modern world.
Machiavelli may not have been, in fact, a Machiavellian. But in American business and social circles he has come to stand for the principle that winning—no matter how—is all. And for this alone, for the first time in history, he is a cultural hero. But even while he lamented his fate, and continued to angle for Medici favor, he went on writing, almost feverishly, and in a variety of forms. He devoted himself to poetry, working on classical themes in Dantesque terza rima, and he discovered a gift for the theatre.
Most striking, in the midst of these dark years, he turned to comedy. To succeed in life a man must be adaptable. He, however—in circumstances very different from the Medici conspiracy a decade earlier—was neither arrested nor implicated. Scholars have agreed with the Florentine authorities that Machiavelli knew nothing of the plot; he was too historically suspect a figure for his friends to risk including.
Of course, in there was not a scrap of evidence against him. But then it may have been the incriminating scrap of that made him think so hard about the rules by which conspirators must proceed: confide in absolutely no one except when absolutely necessary, try to leave no one alive who might be able to take revenge, and, above all, never put anything in writing. He did his job enthusiastically—even ecstatically—and well. Instead, the angry, starving, part-Spanish, part-Lutheran, barely controllable army marched directly on to Rome, where soldiers poured through the walls and viciously sacked the city—robbing, raping, murdering, and destroying for days on end.
Machiavelli himself helped Clement to escape. But he had done even more for his beloved Florence than he knew, and less for himself. In the ensuing chaos, the Medici regime in Florence was overthrown; the republic was restored; the Great Council was reinstated. This was everything that Machiavelli had hoped for even when he appeared to be on the other side.
He was seen not as brilliantly adaptable, however, but simply as on the other side. As a Medici supporter, he found himself once again unemployed, subject to the same sort of political suspicions as when the Medici had first returned. But, at fifty-eight, he no longer had the resources to start over.
Odd, that an expert at winning should have lost so much, and then lost it all again. Machiavelli was his times: he gave permanent form and force to its political habits and unspoken principles.
Although it is often said that modern politics begins with Machiavelli, most politicians still run and hide at the mention of his name.
We insist that our leaders convince us that they are exemplary and increasingly God-fearing human beings, who are nevertheless able to protect us from enemies not so constrained. How is this to be done? Do we really want to know?
Most important, as we emerge from the century that gave Utopia a bad name—in which Hitler and Stalin and other genocidal princes believed they were building superior worlds, in which the means was annihilation and the end an illusion—we are still arguing bitterly over the question of whether the end justifies the means.
Machiavelli did not question the use of torture for political purposes, even after he had been its victim. In the state, there are two main groups the prince must court: the nobles and the people, a theme pulled from Chapter 9. Although a prince must not alienate the nobles, he must win over the people, because they are the majority, and their ill will can cost a prince his place and his life. Hated and despised princes are targets for assassination, because assassins conclude that the people will support killing the ruler.
Plots such as these were a real concern for Renaissance rulers. Machiavelli offers as an example the assassination of Annibale Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, noting that popular support enabled the family to keep their power despite their desperate situation after the assassination. In Machiavelli's own lifetime, in Florence in , the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici had resulted in the injury of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the death of Lorenzo's brother.
In both cases the assassins were from rival powerful families; they were not disgruntled subjects. As if acknowledging this, Machiavelli observes that there is no real defense against a determined assassin, because anyone who is not afraid to die can kill a ruler. Nonetheless, he maintains that popular support is the best prevention. About balancing the conflicting demands of the people and the nobles, Machiavelli offers the interesting example of France's parliamentary government, which allowed participation by both the aristocracy and the commoners.
Rather than presenting it as a democratic innovation, he offers it as a way of increasing the absolute ruler's power, taking pressure off of the prince by putting competing interests into a neutral forum—in effect, giving unpleasant tasks to others so they do not damage the prince's popularity. In the midst of his argument, Machiavelli embarks on a long digression about the many Roman emperors, good and bad, who were assassinated.
He concludes that most of them were undone by their powerful and bloodthirsty armies, a problem that the princes of Machiavelli's time need not worry about. His more interesting observation, which is somewhat lost in his analysis, is that nearly all of the rulers were killed regardless of their qualities and actions.
Some did one thing and others did the opposite, but all came to basically the same end. The key to their success or failure is whether they adapted their actions to their times and political circumstances. This theme reappears in Chapter 25, where Machiavelli discusses the effect of fortune on human affairs. Marcus Marcus Aurelius , called "the Philosopher;" one of the most respected of the Roman emperors. Commodus , oldest son of Marcus Aurelius. Noted as an enthusiast for gladiator and wild animal games in the Coliseum.
Assassinated by a group of conspirators. He states:. So long as you shower benefits on men, they will offer you their blood, provided the necessity for it is far off but when it is near at hand, they revolt. For friendships that are won by rewards — and not by greatness and nobility — cannot be depended upon in times of adversity.
Men have less hesitation in offending one who makes himself loved than one who is feared. For love holds through a bond of obligation, which can be broken whenever it is in the interests of the obliged party.
But fear holds by the apprehension of punishment, which is something that never leaves men. So what are the implications of this for leadership development? Firstly, it should be recognised that this is a valid question. Leaders are usually either loved or feared. They often choose a certain leadership style — and they must be aware that their choice will affect the culture of the entire organisation.
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