The new Machiavellians

Book review of The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham, 1943

There is a group of political theorists who call themselves Machiavellians, and claim that their school’s namesake was misunderstood.

Burnham, author of The Managerial Revolution, summarizes their thinking for a general audience.

Machiavelli, you see, tried to analyze politics through a neutral lens in order to understand how power works in human societies. Instead of surreptitiously pushing a barrow for this faction or that ideology, he tried to understand how power is gained and lost across all times and places.

It may be remarked that the harsh opinion of Machiavelli has been more widespread in England and the United States than in the nations of Continental Europe. This is no doubt natural, because the distinguishing quality of Anglo-Saxon politics has always been hypocrisy, and hypocrisy must always be at pains to shy away from the truth.

Burnham

Machiavelli is best known for The Prince, which was advice to a particular Medici Big Man, but his other works inquire into the practice of politics more generally and take many examples from history.

The essence of Machiavellian thought is that the study of politics should be strictly about what is, not about what ought to be. Politics is the contest about who gets what but the study of politics should be an unbiased investigation into how societies decide who gets what.

In the case that a Machiavellian does have an ‘ought’ in mind, he should put it out in front rather than hide it behind his theorizing. The man himself did this with his view that Italy ought to become a united and sovereign nation for the greater freedom and prosperity of the Italian people.

The antithesis of the Machiavellian approach is Dante’s De Monarchia, which is a long-winded argument for a single king to rule over the entire world forever, but is secretly just an argument in favour of his losing faction in Florentine politics.

Machiavellians argue that most schools of political thought are more metaphysical than scientific, are dishonest about their aims, and set goals which are physically impossible. ‘Achieving equity’ springs to mind, or Winning the War on Terror or Drugs or Poverty or whatever.

Such fake argumentation comes up a lot in international relations, i.e. in this quote which could be applied to modern frictions over the South China Sea:

We imagine we are arguing over the moral and legal status of the principle of the freedom of the seas when the real question is who is to control the seas.

Democracy

Machiavellians are skeptical about democracy:

That nothing is more vain and inconstant than the multitude, Titus Livy and all other historians do agree. … He says, ‘The nature of the multitude is, to be servilely obedient, or insolently tyrannical.’

The Machiavellian view is that every purported democracy is in fact an oligarchy, though the masses may exert some influence. The following is from Mosca, an Italian elitist thinker:

In elections, as in all other manifestations of social life, those who have the will and, especially, the moral, intellectual and material means to force their will upon others take the lead over the others and command them.

Voters must choose from a small number of organized minorities, i.e. elites.

How does one enter this ruling class? Mosca again:

To rise in the social scale, even in calm and normal times, the prime requisite, beyond any question, is a capacity for hard work, but the requisite next in importance is ambition: a firm resolve to get on in the world, to outstrip one’s fellows. Now those traits hardly go with extreme sensitiveness or, to be quite frank, with ‘goodness’ either. For ‘goodness’ cannot remain indifferent to the hurts of those who must be thrust behind if one is to step ahead of them . . . If one is to govern men, more useful than a sense of justice – and much more useful than altruism, or even than extent of knowledge or broadness of view – are perspicacity, a ready intuition of individual and mass psychology, strength of will and, especially, confidence in oneself.

I have had a minor involvement in politics myself and spot no error in this assessment. The only thing I would add is that the ability to get by on very little sleep is also very important in liberal democracies, such are the required meetings, grip-and-grin events, etc.

Further, ‘Power lies with the most boring man in the room.’ Modern elites benefit from obsession with insignificant details and an absence of curiosity.

Liberty

While the modern Machiavellians claim to be pushing no barrow, they sort of are. In several places, Burnham and those whose work he presents suggest that the freedom should be the ultimate aim of politics. Here they mean freedom from arbitrary rule and tyranny – a system of fair laws and processes under which we can get on with our lives unmolested.

It’s a bit cheeky of them to sneak in an ‘ought’ after all they said against it, but let’s acknowledge that the Machiavellian ‘ought’ is pretty modest. It does not demand democracy, a bill of rights, redistribution, a wise monarch or anything in particular.

In fact, they think that freedom as they define it is best achieved under any system in which no one faction holds a monopoly on power:

Freedom, in the world as it is, is thus the product of conflict and difference, not of unity and harmony. In these terms we see again the danger of “idealism,” utopianism, and demagogy. The idealists, utopians, and demagogues always tell us that justice and the good society will be achieved by the absolute triumph of their doctrine and their side. The facts show us that the absolute triumph of any side and any doctrine whatsoever can only mean tyranny.

Burnham later asserts that the best way to restrain any ruling power is through a strong opposition, be it Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, a church which runs its own schools, a business class with interests separate from the state, or indeed any power centre outside the government which sometimes pushes in another direction.

This is where managerialism lets in tyranny: as the state expands and incorporates more and more of society, there are fewer and fewer ruling class enclaves of activity that lie entirely outside the state.

A cleavage in the ruling class is the only thing that can open up space for freedom.

There is no particular group whose empowerment unleashes liberty. Rather, it is the conflict itself which allows it.

The ruling class

Burnham writes a lot about Pareto‘s ideas:

. . . a given society will include a certain and relatively stable percentage of, for example, clever individuals; but an enormous difference to the society and its development will result from the extent to which these clever individuals are concentrated in its elite, or spread evenly throughout the entire population, or even concentrated in the non-elite.

The Machiavellians tend to believe that an elite will always rule by definition, and that the quality of this leadership will partly depend on how open it is to outsiders. It cannot be too open (a pure meritocracy) or there will be constant vying for power and no time for governance; it cannot be too closed (hereditary) or the ruling class will become ossified and debauched. A happy medium is to allow the very best of the plebs to claw their way into the elite.

If a ruling class becomes weak internally it will be overturned by up-and-comers. It if is too weak externally, it will be conquered by outside forces, i.e. an invading army. Such weakness might emerge through a loss of focus on ruling, a loss of confidence, a loss of faith in uniting myths, or an unwillingness to use raw force.

Summary

Towards the end Burnham presents his own summary of Machiavellianism, of which I’ll present a few of the most interesting points:

7. The primary object of every elite, or ruling class, is to maintain its own power and privilege . . .

8. The rule of the elite is based upon force and fraud. The force may, to be sure, be much of the time hidden or only threatened; and the fraud many not entail any conscious deception . . .

9. The social structure as a whole is integrated and sustained by a political formula, which is usually correlated with a  generally accepted religion, ideology or myth . . .

11. Two opposing tendencies always operate in the case of every elite: (a) an aristocratic tendency whereby the elite seeks to preserve the ruling position of its members and their descendants, and to prevent others from entering its ranks; (b) a democratic tendency whereby new elements force their way into the elite from below . . .

12. In the long run, the second of these tendencies always prevails. From this it follows that no social structure is permanent and no static utopia is possible. The social or class struggle continues, and its record is history.

Conclusion

The Machiavellian approach to analyzing politics is most similar to Marxism in that it examines the competing power centres in society. Where it differs is that Marxism claims that there is an ideal endpoint to this struggle. The Machiavellians instead think that the battle for power will go on for as long as humanity does, and that the only ‘ideal’ is those periods of relative freedom when the regime is counterbalanced by competing factions of the ruling class.

This seems an accurate way to consider politics in general, but I think the Machiavellians too easily throw out the ‘great man’ theory of history and other approaches. Sometimes one person really does make a big difference, for better or worse. The Machiavellian firewall against such concepts is a bit ideological, which is exactly what they are trying to avoid.

Their pessimism, or at least lack of utopianism, seems rational. We’ve been trying different forms of organizing ourselves for thousands of years and we’ve never hit upon a perfect formula. That suggests that there isn’t one. Rather, different groups keep on muscling for rank and the best society is the one in which they are kept in balance. But they cannot be kept in balance forever.

Liberal democracy seemed pretty flash in the 1950s or so, but now appears to be descending into a new form of tyranny due to the absence of a genuine opposition.

Our current ruling class is strongly united under a new myth (Woke). This, too, shall pass. The best way to speed this passing would be to support any splinter group of the ruling class that challenges the present regime, however odious that opposition may be.