III. MACHIAVELLISM IN THE
MODERN WORLD
It is most doubtful that Machiavellism survived the
fall of the ancien régime. This statement does not imply
that interest in Machiavelli diminished or died; on the
contrary, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries an
extended literature concerned with Machiavelli and
Machiavelli's thought was produced, but the nature of
interest in Machiavelli has changed.
In previous centuries Machiavelli's ideas had been
regarded as the nucleus of a system which was of
practical significance for every kind of political action
and human behavior. With the political and social
transformation brought about by the French Revolu-
tion Machiavellism lost the environment in which its
notions would strike sparks.
A secularized outlook on the world, frequently
coupled with an optimistic belief in progress, could
regard evil actions as a result of strange, abnormal
circumstances or psychology. But that awe for the
demonic power of evil that had made Machiavelli's
recommendations not only abhorrent but also tempting
was lost.
Likewise, after the French Revolution, tyranny and
despotism seemed to belong to a discarded past. Even
if the march to full democratic rule of the people was
slow, even if a written constitution limiting the extent
and the forms of government interference and a deter-
mination of the rights of man had become accepted
features of a civilized political society, much of the
advice which Machiavelli had given to his prince and
on which Machiavellist writers like Naudé or Machon
had enlarged became irrelevant.
Finally, the rise of nationalism stripped the Machia-
vellist theories on the unlimited use of force in foreign
affairs of much of their explosive character. If the
nation and the national state embodied the supreme
ethical value and the individual could accomplish his
own ethical ends only within a strong nation, then
application of force to secure the life of the nation
was easily justifiable and Machiavelli's views sounded
much less extravagant than when they seemed to pro-
claim the unlimited right of the stronger over the
weaker. In this changed political atmosphere people
were inclined to minimize the consequences of Machia-
velli's thought rather than to face them in their ruthless
radicalism. Because of the appeal to liberate Italy from
the barbarians in the last chapter of the Principe,
Machiavelli was transformed into a prophet of the age
of nationalism, and the amorality of his doctrines was
explained as a result of the hopelessness of the Italian
political situation: it was so desperate that Machiavelli
was forced to prescribe poison, to use the words of
the German historian Leopold von Ranke.
In the changed climate of the nineteenth century,
with the development of a new and differentiated
outlook on internal politics and foreign affairs, Machia-
vellism lost the appearance of providing a coherent
system. This is reflected in the manner in which the
words “Machiavellian” and “Machiavellist” are used
in language and literature of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries. Whoever takes mental note of the
occurrences of the term “Machiavellist” in modern
times will be amused and fascinated by the widely
varied and even contradictory applications of the word.
It is logical—and in accordance with the history of
Machiavellism—that those features in modern political
society which still bear the traces of the ancien régime
frequently receive the label “Machiavellian.” Diplo-
mats are regularly suspected to be Machiavellians and
Americans in the times of Woodrow Wilson were
inclined to regard the entire European system of for-
eign policy, based on the assumption of sovereignty,
as containing a Machiavellist element. Likewise states-
men proceeding in an authoritarian manner are usually
considered as disciples of Machiavelli; in the nine-
teenth century both Metternich and Bismarck were
called Machiavellian.
It is a small step from here to a use of the word
that regards every clever political maneuver as
Machiavellian. And the reading of political biogra
phies, for instance, the biography of Huey P. Long
(1967) by T. Harry Williams, or of issues of the Ameri-
can Historical Review, will provide many examples of
this.
Cleverness, of course, arouses distrust because a
clever man is suspected of keeping something back,
and of not being entirely frank and open. Briefly, he
behaves very much as a Machiavellian would be ex-
pected to behave. And indeed, “Machiavellian” and
slyly “clever” are often used synonymously. The con-
cept “Machiavellian” has become so vague and am-
biguous that every human activity which tries to
achieve its ends through exclusion of all extrane-
ous—human or moral—considerations is called
“Machiavellian”; a businessman, therefore, might have
a Machiavellian strategy. The application of technical
devices, because they reduce human or moral qualities
to calculable factors, is frequently considered Machia-
vellian. In the 1960's the labels of Machiavellian or
Machiavellistic could be affixed to anything that was
considered to be wrong or inhuman.
If the idea of Machiavellism lost in coherence and
significance in the nineteenth century, the development
of scholarship, and particularly of historical scholar-
ship, maintained and perhaps intensified interest in
Machiavelli; however these scholarly concerns sepa-
rated Machiavelli from Machiavellism and placed
Machiavelli in a very new light.
The historical literature on Machiavelli pursued two
lines of research. The one was to determine his place
in the development of political thought. The other was
to see him as a figure of his time, of the Italian Renais-
sance. In the field of political thought the relation of
his thought to classical or medieval political theorists
became clarified, and detailed investigations estab-
lished the influence of his thought on later political
thinkers like Montesquieu, or even more recent ones
like Gaetano Mosca or Antonio Gramsci. The study
of Machiavelli as a figure of the Renaissance resulted
in a better understanding of the institutional and social
milieu in which he lived and to which his writings were
aimed; the difference between his real aims and those
ascribed to him by later generations emerged sharply.
Because these scholarly efforts described Machiavelli
as an Italian of the Renaissance or as a link in the
development of political thought, because they “his-
toricized” Machiavelli, they contributed to the decline
of Machiavellism as a system of permanent validity
and applicability.
On the other hand, the scholarly approach placed
Machiavelli at the beginning of a development which
has extended into modern times. Machiavelli was
shown to have touched upon many questions of politi-
cal techniques—control of the masses by psychology,
the role of an elite—which are recognized as essential
factors in every political society and, as such, have
become objects of intense study in the development
of political science. Moreover, because the Renaissance
was believed to have begun the modern period of
history, the characterization of Machiavelli as a typical
representative of this period made him a forerunner
of modern man. Actually it was not so much Machia-
velli as his picture of Cesare Borgia which was re-
garded as characteristically modern—a personality
which emancipated itself from the bonds of conven-
tional morality and lived a free life according to its
natural instincts. This was Nietzsche's view of Cesare
Borgia which he had taken from Machiavelli's
Principe.
Thus, even in the efforts of modern scholarship,
Machiavelli has remained—although remotely and
tenuously—tied to the concerns of the present day.
This is important because it has its bearing on what
might be called the latest, most recent chapter in the
history of Machiavellism, the relation of Machiavellism
to twentieth-century totalitarianism. Fascist dictators
liked to refer to Machiavelli as a master who had
understood the true nature of politics; Mussolini pro-
fessed that he wanted to write a dissertation on
Machiavelli. But there is no sign that Hitler or Musso-
lini had any concrete knowledge of Machiavelli's writ-
ings or ideas. They were influenced by social Darwinist
ideas of the necessary triumph of the stronger over
the weaker. And in the popular mind this was a theory
which Machiavelli had already advanced. They pre-
tended to be adherents of Nietzschean philosophy, and
thought of Machiavelli's Cesare Borgia as a model of
the superman. In the organization of their party and
their government system the concept of elite was cru-
cial, and Machiavelli would be mentioned as one of
the first political scientists raising this issue.
These were probably the contexts in which they
became aware of Machiavelli. They ascribed to him
basic ideas of intellectual movements of their own time
which had molded their minds, and they found this
convenient because they liked to place their policies
and systems under the protection of the name of the
great Florentine. To maintain the existence of a serious
connection between Machiavelli and the ideas and
policies of the modern totalitarian dictators is a mis-
understanding. It must be added, however, that the
history of Machiavellism is quite as much a history of
misunderstandings as a history of the impact of Machia-
velli's true ideas.
