TURNING now to the question of a prince obtaining his position by securing the favour of his fellow citizens, Machiavelli is clearly not talking about what we now regard as ‘democracy,’ but a situation whereby the citizens of a given region do not wish to be ruled by the nobility. This, he claims, leads to three possible outcomes: a principality, self-government or disorder.

In the first example, that of the principality, the nobles attempt to secure power by choosing a potential prince from among their own number. The people, in turn, attempt to resist this process by selecting a candidate from among themselves:

He who obtains the principality by the assistance of the nobles maintains himself with more difficulty than he who comes to it by the aid of the people. This is because the former finds himself with many around him who consider themselves his equals. Because of this, he can neither rule nor manage them to his liking. But he who gains the principality by popular favour finds himself alone, and has none around him, or few, who are not prepared to obey him.

In other words, both the noble and popular candidates are restricted to some extent by the manner in which they are regarded by their peers. Their motives are different, too, because whilst the man of the people will never satisfy the whims of the aristocracy he does understand the nature of freedom. A prince selected by his fellow nobles can use his new authority to restrict their power and influence, whilst the constitutional prince needs to win the favour of the people by keeping tyranny at bay. Furthermore, Machiavelli argues, the latter:

can easily do this because they only ask not to be oppressed by him. But one who, without the support of the people, becomes a prince by the favour of the nobles, ought, above everything, to seek to win the people over to himself. He may easily do this if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when they receive good from him of whom they were expecting evil, are bound more closely to their protector.

Nabis of Sparta, who is known to have ruled between 207 and 192 BCE, is said to have successfully defended his territory from the country’s Greek and Roman adversaries by relying on the support of the people. This was not merely a result of his popularity, however, but also due to his display of good leadership. Laying the foundations is one thing, Machiavelli says, but using it to your advantage another. The anti-democratic nature of the Italian’s beliefs can be detected in his discussion of the way a principality can evolve from a constitutional to an absolute government involving princes that rule either personally or through councils:

In the latter case their government is weaker and more insecure, because it rests entirely on the attitude of those citizens who are placed on the council, and who, especially in troubled times, can destroy the government with great ease, either by trickery or open rebellion.

He does have a point, after all, but seems more concerned with the fact that a council has the ability to prevent an aspiring prince from achieving a position of absolute authority. Moreover, he says, this

experiment of moving from a constitutional to an absolute government is dangerous, because it can only be tried once. Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in all kinds of circumstances have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful.

Beginning with an endorsement of popular-based freedom, Anti-Machiavel seeks to counteract Machiavelli’s claims by highlighting the fact that people simply never choose to live under tyranny:

One knows in Europe of the people which shook the yoke of their tyrants to enjoy independence; but one does not know any free ones that subjected themselves to a voluntary slavery.

Machiavelli, who was in favour of republicanism, was never going to win his Hohenzollern counterpart over to that particular viewpoint, and Frederick demonstrates that the republic is far from corruptible:

How could a republic resist, for all time, every cause which undermines its freedom? How could it always contain the ambition of the would-be princes which it also nourishes? How could it withstand for long the seductions of the usurper, the practical deaf person, and the corruption of its members, as long as self-interest will be all-powerful in men? How can it hope to always win, or even leave with honour, every war which it will have to support? How will it be able to prevent these annoying economic situations that come with its freedom, these moments critical and decisive – these and other chances from which arise both the courageous ones and the corrupt?

Frederick believes that all republics begin with a genuine thirst for freedom and yet gradually evolve into that same tyranny which they had fought so hard to extinguish. We have seen this happen over the course of the last two or three centuries, in particular, be it the regicidal excesses of the 1789 French Revolution or the rise of Judeo-Russian Bolshevism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both systems became even more ruthless and tyrannical than those which had preceded them. Frederick notes the same trends in both Ancient Rome and Cromwellian England:

These are thus not histories of republics which gave themselves Masters by their free choice; but of new and especially alert tyrants, helped of some economic situation advantageous to them, who subjected the people against their will.

TO BE CONTINUED…