Notes on Machiavelli's Politics

The fundamental characteristic of The Prince is that it is not a systematic treatment, but a “living” book, in which political ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic form of a “myth”. In contrast to the utopia and the scholastic tract, the forms in which political science was expressed before Machiavelli, this treatment has given his conception the form of fantasy and art, by it the doctrinal and rational element is embodied in the person of a condottiere, representing plastically and “anthropomorphically” the symbol of the “collective will”. The process of formation of a determined collective will, for a determined political end, is here represented not through disquisitions and pedantic classifications of the principles and criteria of a mode of action, but through the qualities, characteristic traits, duties, necessities of a concrete person, which excite the artistic fantasy of those he wants to convince and give a more concrete form to political passions.¹

The Prince of Machiavelli could be studied as an historical example of the Sorellian "myth", that is, of a political ideology which is not presented as a cold utopia or as a rational doctrine, but as a creation of concrete fantasy which works on a dispersed and pulverised people in order to arouse and organise their collective will. The utopian characteristic of The Prince lies in the fact that the Prince did not exist in historical reality, did not present himself to the Italian people in a directly objective way, but was a purely doctrinaire abstraction, the symbol of a leader, the ideal condottiere; but the emotional, mythical elements contained throughout this small book, with very effective dramatic movement, are recapitulated and come to life in the conclusion, the invocation of a "really existing" prince. Throughout the book Machiavelli deals with what the Prince must be in order to lead the people towards the foundation of a new State, and the argument is conducted with rigorous logic, with scientific detachment; in the conclusion Machiavelli makes himself the people, merges himself with the people, not with the people in a "general" sense, but with the people whom Machiavelli has convinced with the preceding tract, whose conscious expression he becomes and feels himself to be, with whom he feels himself identified: it seems that the whole of the "logical" work is only a reflection of the people, an internal reasoning which takes place inside the popular consciousness and has its conclusions in an impassioned, urgent cry. Passion, from reasoning about itself, becomes "emotion", fever, fanaticism for action. That is why the epilogue of The Prince is not something extrinsic, "stuck on" from outside, rhetorical, but must be understood as a necessary part of the work, and, moreover, as that part which sheds a true light over the whole work and makes it seem like a "political manifesto".

We can study how Sorel did not advance from the conception of the ideology-myth to an understanding of the political party, but stopped short at the conception of the trade union. It is true that for Sorel the "myth" did not find its greatest expression in the union as an organisation of a collective will, but in the practical action of the union and of an already operating collective will, practical action whose greatest realisation was, according to him, the general strike, that is "passive activity", so to speak, of a negative and preliminary character (the positive character is provided only by the agreement reached by the associated wills), an activity which does not envisage its own "active and constructive" phase. In Sorel therefore two necessities were in conflict: that of the myth and that of criticism of the myth, since "every pre-established plan is utopian and reactionary". The solution was left to irrational impulse, to "chance" (in the Bergsonian sense of "vital impulse"), or to "spontaneity".

But can a myth be "non-constructive", can it be imagined, according to Sorel's intuitions, that an instrument is productive of an effect which leaves the collective will in the primitive and elementary phase of its mere formation, through distinction (through "splitting away"), even though with violence, that is, by destroying existing moral and legal relations? Will not this collective will, thus elementarily formed, immediately cease to exist, and be scattered in an infinity of single wills which for the positive phase follow different and contrasting directions? In addition there is the question that destruction, negation, cannot exist without an implicit construction, affirmation, and not in a “metaphysical” sense but in practice, i.e. politically, as a party programme. In this case we see that behind spontaneity is presupposed pure mechanicalism, behind freedom (vital will-drive) a maximum of determinism, behind idealism an absolute materialism.

The modern prince, the myth-prince, cannot be a real person, a concrete individual; it can only be an organism; a complex element of society in which the cementing of a collective will, recognised and partially asserted in action, has already begun. This organism is already provided by historical development and it is the political party: the first cell containing the germs of collective will which are striving to become universal and total. In the modern world only an immediate and imminent historico-political action, characterised by the necessity for rapid and lightning movement, can be mythically embodied in a concrete individual; this rapidity can only be rendered necessary by a great imminent danger, a great danger which in fact brings about simultaneously the enflaming of passions and fanaticism, abolishing critical sense and the corroding irony which can destroy the “divine” character of a condottiere (which is what happened in the Boulanger adventure.) But an immediate action of this kind, by its very nature, cannot be long drawn out or have an organic character. It will almost always be of the restoration and reorganisation type and not of the type proper to the foundation of new States and new national and social structures (as was the case in Machiavelli’s Prince, in which the aspect of restoration was only theoretical, that is, bound up with the literary concept of an Italy descending from Rome which must restore the order and power of Rome).² It will have a “defensive” and not an originally creative character, in which, that is, it is presupposed that there is an already existing collective will which is enervated, dispersed, which has suffered a dangerous and threatening but not decisive and catastrophic collapse, and which it is necessary to reconcentrate and strengthen and not that a collective will is to be created ex novo, originally, and to be directed towards very concrete and rational ends, but ends whose concreteness and rationality have not yet been verified and criticised by any effective and universally known historical experience.

The "abstract" character of Sorel's conception of the "myth" is apparent from his aversion (which takes the emotional form of ethical repugnance) for the Jacobins, who were certainly a "categoric incarnation" of Machiavelli's Prince. The Modern Prince must contain a part dedicated to Jacobinism (in the integral significance which this notion has had historically and ought to have conceptually), as an example of how a collective will was formed and operated concretely, which in at least some of its aspects was an original creation, ex novo. It is necessary to define collective will and political will in general in the modern sense; will as working consciousness of historical necessity, as protagonist of a real and effective historical drama.

One of the first parts ought in fact to be dedicated to the "collective will", posing the question in this way: "When can the conditions for the arousing and development of a national-popular collective will be said to exist?" Hence an historical (economic) analysis must be made of the social structure of the given country together with a "dramatic" presentation of the attempts made throughout the centuries to arouse this will and the reasons for the successive failures. Why was there no absolute monarchy in Italy at the time of Machiavelli? One must go back to the end of the Roman Empire (questions of language, the intellectuals, etc.) in order to understand the function of the mediaeval Communes, the significance of Catholicism, etc.: it is necessary, in fact, to make a sketch of the whole of Italian history, synthetic but exact.

The reason for the successive failures of the attempts to create a national-popular collective will is to be sought in the existence of certain social groups, which were formed by the dissolution of the Communal bourgeoisie, and in the particular character of other groups which reflect the international function of Italy as the seat of the Church and depositary of the Holy Roman Empire, etc. This function and the consequent position led to an internal situation which can be called "economico-corporealistic", that is, politically, the worst of the forms of feudal society, the least progressive and the most stagnant: there was always lacking, and could not be constituted, an efficient Jacobin force, just such a force which in other nations awakened and organised the national popular collective will and founded the modern States. Do the conditions for this will finally exist, or what is the present relationship between these conditions and the forces opposed to them? Traditionally the opposing forces have been the landed aristocracy and more generally landed property in all its forms, with its characteristic Italian trait which is a special "rural bourgeoisie", heir of the parasitism bequeathed to modern times by the ruin, as a class, of the Communal bourgeoisie (the hundred cities, the cities of silence). The positive conditions are to be sought in the existence of urban social groups, conveniently developed in the field of industrial production, who have reached a certain level of historico-political culture. Any formation of a national-popular collective will is impossible, unless the great mass of peasant cultivators breaks simultaneously into political life. Machiavelli understood this by his reform of the militia, which is what the Jacobins did in the French Revolution, and in this understanding we can see the precocious Jacobinism of Machiavelli, the germ (more or less fertile) of his conception of the national revolution. All history since 1815 shows the efforts of the traditional classes to prevent the formation of a collective will of this kind, to maintain their "economico-corporealistic" power in an international system of passive equilibrium.

An important part of the modern Prince will have to be devoted to the question of intellectual and moral reform, that is, to the question of religion or world outlook. In this field also we find a traditional absence of Jacobinism and fear of Jacobinism (the latest philosophical expression of which fear is the Malthusian standpoint of B. Croce towards religion). The Modern Prince must and cannot but be the preacher and organiser of intellectual and moral reform, which means creating the basis for a later development of the national popular collective will towards the realisation of a higher and total form of modern civilisation.

These two fundamental points—the formation of a national-popular collective will of which the modern Prince is at the same time the organiser and active working expression, and a moral and intellectual reform—should constitute the structure of the work. The concrete points of programme must be incorporated in the first part, i.e. they should result "dramatically" from the discourse and not be a cold and pedantically reasoned exposition.

Can there be a cultural reform and an uplifting of the civilisation of the depressed strata of society without there first being an economic reform and a change in their social position and place in the economic world? Intellectual and moral reform must be tied to a programme of economic reform; moreover, the programme of economic reform is precisely the concrete way in which every intellectual and moral reform is presented. The Modern Prince, in developing itself, changes the system of intellectual and moral relations, since its development means precisely that every act is conceived as useful or harmful, as virtuous or wicked, only in so far as it has the Modern Prince itself as a point of reference and helps to increase its power or oppose it. The Prince takes the place, in the conscience, of the divinity or of the categorical imperative, and becomes the basis of a modern laicism, of a complete laicisation of the whole of life and of all customary relations.

Notes

1. It will have to be seen whether any political writers before Machiavelli have presented their writings like The Prince. The close of the book is tied up also with this "mythical" characteristic: after having presented the ideal condottiere, Machiavelli, in a passage of great artistic effect, calls on the real condottiere to bring him to life historically: this impassioned plea reflects on the whole book and confers on it precisely this dramatic character. In Luigi Russo's Prolegomini, Machiavelli is called the artist of politics, and once even the expression of "myth" occurs, but not in the precise sense shown above.↩
2. In addition to the examples offered by the great absolute monarchies of France and Spain, Machiavelli was inspired to his conception of the necessity of a unitary Italian State by the memory of Rome. It must be shown, however, that Machiavelli is not on this account to be confused with the literary-rhetorical tradition. Especially because this element is not exclusive and not even predominant, and the necessity for a great national State is not deduced from it, and also because even the reference to Rome is less abstract than it appears, if it is placed correctly in the climate of Humanism and the Renaissance. In Book VII of The Art of War we read; "This province (Italy) seems born for the reviving of dead things, as we have seen with poetry, painting and sculpture; why should it not therefore rediscover military virtue?" etc. His remarks of this kind will have to be grouped together to establish their exact character.↩