Machiavelli
Written by James Hawkins
“The only real concern of the political ruler is the acquisition and maintenance of power.”
My first article posed the question of what is politics?
Politics is the art of governing within the confines of irrationality, hubris, human failure and avarice; a recognition of the innate insecurities and doubts within, as reflected in The Fable of the Bees – a society with every irregular disposition searching for survival and place.
Politics, I argued, was to be repositioned, reflecting a form of utopianism which denies our irrationalities and searches for equality. This form of rational discourse has achieved an alienation of the working classes, a rise of political division, as is the case with the search for utopian idealism can only. It serves, arguably, well in a globalised world, as an opium to our realities, our historic realities and to our contemporary realities – in this article, we look to the antidote of utopian values in the form of Niccolo Machiavelli.
Machiavelli stares these realities in the face, he does not offer the balm of identity or equality, but the fierce and harsh realities of our lives. He searches and deals in the politics of truth and was the first realist we look at in this series: Realism, the politics of power. From the discovery of the first fresh water river bed, rice field and construction of a town, the realist's ontology is one of conflict – that fresh water, that field of rice is not yours, it's ours, and we will conquer, we will subjugate you to our will. Pessimistic, cynical, and yet a reality that we unfortunately observe every day of our lives - the act of war and conquest.
War is our irrational pursuit of control, indeed of the nexus of politics, that of power. War is an inevitability due to the irrationalities described in the first article; it presents an opportunity which does not pander to our sensibilities as a human race to co-operate, because that's what we do. What do I mean by this simplistic rhetoric, which flies in the face of liberal cooperation? By conquer on a political sphere we look to the acquisition of land; we look to the acquisition of crops, water, forest, raw materials and power supply; look at our conflicts in the 21st Century, and of course modernisation of weaponry may allow us, in the words of Orwell, the euphemism and cleanliness of barbarism in the form of “collateral damage” or “casualties of war” and “pacification” and yet the bloodshed never ceases. Also, certainly within our contemporary society of an echo political echo chamber, we conquer every day via our class system, our economic disparity, our lifestyles which are beamed on social media, publicised within a work and family dynamic where our innate reflexes are to search for the perfection of our own destiny.
Conquering is not simply a matter of imperialists and fascists riding roughshod over land mass. It is within the pursuit of control of our irrationalities, as explained last week, it is within the progressive who is searching for utopian answers that equate to order and control of thought. In essence, realism, though rejected by the liberal, by the progressive, is within the core of those dynamics also – to read Gramsci, and I will write on him during these articles – is to see the pursuit of power of the progressive, the neo-Marxism, an this is the pursuit of power – it is the control that contemporary politics deems so defunct; politics is power – Realists acknowledge and legitimise this. Machiavelli, the realist, is the font of realism that all others have supped - and indeed, in reality, as have progressive politicians as well.
Machiavelli talked of two things - fortuna and virtu.
Fortuna is our fate – how we navigate this is the way we engage with the realities of our existence; not hypothetical but the reality of our lives. Therefore, to return to article one, what is politics, for Machiavelli, it is the politics of our reality – of an empirically driven pursuit of facts and a truth; power, safety, security and stability of the state. In our contemporary post modern society, empiricism and the argument that facts are, on a Galilean sense, scientific, is frowned upon (more of the critique later) But Machiavelli is there to be frowned upon through the bien pensant as he does not moralise a response to the structure and ailments of the city state – he seeks solutions through the rivers of Fortuna.
(1) Orwell, G, (1946) ‘Politics and the English Language, Horizon. — GB, London.
Politics is not a theoretical or ideological pursuit – it is practical management in the art of statecraft. Machiavelli wanted the management of the state, and with The Prince, he offers a practical guide to its management and survival. This is key; the question he poses is how to maintain the state – how to challenge the rise and fall of the state, to ensure stability, its endurance. To ensure this, the relationship between fortuna and virtu must be controlled, must be managed; this, Machiavelli denotes, is a relationship which is fundamentally “as a form of socio-political relation”.
This is important. The central tenant of these articles runs the question of what is politics, and Machiavelli is paramount in the political canon to clearly associate the symbiosis between socio and political - politics is the art of governance, the pursuit and maintenance of power, and the defence of the city state; in the face of our ever changing fortuna. Theory, ideology, and dogma, do not govern the masses – realism, will grapple with and offers practical solutions to fortuna, and Machiavelli argues in ch.p4 of The Prince;
"Those princes who are utterly dependent on fortune come to grief when their fortune changes."
The Prince, the ruler, needs to find a solutions to the constant challenges we face through our fate. If we look beyond the embrace of pubic works, and the practical implementation of political solutions, then the state will fail. A failed state, "is a country without embankments and without dykes," that allows "one of those violent rivers," of fortuna to flood and to drown our cities and the metaphor allows for the consumption of our political destiny – take your eye off embankments, and the river will rise and our landscapes will flood.
We, the political classes, need to engage not in theoretical discourse, but civic participation. As we looked to Aristotelian thought in the last extract, we are zoon politikon - political animals searching and advocating the security of the polis through shares experience and practical implication of statecraft. Therefore, a leader must engage, understand and acknowledge the political certainties
that are consistent – from the 16th Century to the 21st – a rejection of idealism, and the construct of one's own luck, through charisma, cunning, personality and when necessary, force. To be a successful political leader, one must maximise virtu and minimise fortuna – in essence, control politics, control the mechanisms of power, control the message and create one's own destiny as a leader.
The forefather of realism in political thinking and International Relations, Machiavelli, understood the political ambiguities and irrationalities of governance. For liberty to succeed, and to continue, for our freedoms to be preserved, there is a paradox at play – the city state to actively engage in the preservation of power, strength, to allow for freedoms to flourish. He argues, “a free city is generally influenced by two principal objects, the one is to aggrandize herself, and the other is to preserve her liberties”. Realism looks to the state as the political actor – no other political institution on an IR basis is relevant. Look on a greater pluralistic level, the city state, London, for example, needs to engage in the protection of its citizens; the structure of its institutions; its readiness to engage with civil or political disobedience; the ability to maximise its strength via a content citizenry; the willingness to promote a public good – is this being achieved, well, that is for another day to debate, but contemporary progressive politics, that have enshrined theoretical and cultural objectives, relegating statecraft to a lesser priority, has ensured a rise of populism in Western Europe.
Division within the political populace for Machiavelli is not an option – ideals, culture, theory, dogma, are all relegated in the pursuit of statecraft and the public good. Anarchy – the irrationality our our own existence – as explained in article 1, is omni present and we need to acknowledge this. Once we do, our fate – fortuna - can be controlled and its powers bottled via the leaders, the citizens, the media, the institutional mouth pieces and our community leaders virtu.
(2) Lawrence A. Borja (2016)Virtù, Fortuna, and Statecraft: A Dialectical analysis of Machiavelli (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
Gripped in the realms of neoliberalism, whether it be the edifices of Thatcherism and Blair, the EU or devotees of monerterist doctrine in our schools, universities and hospitals, the creed of the individual is paramount.
Machiavelli would not deem our devotion to neoliberalism either prudent, wise or effective;
“A sagacious legislator of the republic ... whose object is to promote the public good, and not his private interests, and who prefers his country to his own successors, should concentrate all authority in himself”.
Not private interests. Therefore to conclude – to continue the thread through the early stages of these articles, politics, not the neoliberal, anarchic, cultural, or progressive pursuit of self worth, self design/desire and agency – it is the strength of the polis through the control of our fortuna, our fate, and as he describes in the his most lucid and profound handbook and guide to leadership, The Prince, must succeed not via dogmatic autocracy, ideology or fear, but his/her pursuit of virtu – our relationship with other citizens; our strengths, and humility in face of the tempest – not fear, but a garnering of respect – to be both the fox and the lion;
"a prince being thus obliged to well know how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from the wolves. One must, therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to protect himself from wolves”.
This, I argue is the politics best served; to be respected, and yet be humble, to understand the hubris of power of power, the traps served up by fortuna and the understanding that a nation state is always a collection of citizens who protectorate and future remain a leaders duty in the face of all our fortuna.
(3) Machiavelli 1469-1527. (1981). The prince. Harmondsworth, Eng. ; New York, N.Y. :Penguin Books.