Machiavellis’
Prince: The Art Of Politics
Politics
has been regarded by the people as corrupted and filthy since the dawn of man.
Thus, it is normal for people to understand and get in touch with the writings
of Machiavelli easier than Platos’. However, people tend to be inspired more
from Palto, because his leadership theory is what people have idealized
throughout time. Unfortunately the perfect is not always the best and I believe
that for a leader being realistic and having a pragmatic approach towards life
is much more important than living in an idealistic world.
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| Machiavelli |
As I
have stated in the introduction, realism is a strong attribute in Machiavellis’
Prince. He uses various examples from the history to clarify his opinions,
which is a clear plus over Plato. For instance on being despised and hated the
example of Roman emperors are given (Machiavelli, Chapter 19) and on liberality
the example of Pope Julius the Second is given (Chapter 16). This argument can
be challenged with the fact that Plato lived nearly 1700 years earlier than
Machiavelli and could not witness or read enough about leaders. This defence
has valid points However, it further proves that his ideas do not correspond to
modern times and is not valid for our epoch. It should not be interpreted that
I am whole-heartedly against Plato’s idealism. If successful leaders’ lives are
observed, it can be seen that they had ideals and visions to start with.
Without these, those leaders would have been susceptible to failure. For
example, Lenin would have given up because of the civil war that started after 1917
Revolution (Lefebvre, 150) or Atatürk would have called quit after the loss of Mosul
and Keokuk. Thus, some abstract thinking and vision is needed for a leader.
However if this much idealism reaches the levels of Plato’s work it would be
troublesome for the state, because the leader would lose contact with reality.
For instance, Plato mentions that leader-philosophers will not own private
property (Platon, 417a-b) or leader-philosophers will govern the country
without the desire of private gains (520d). These are just few examples of his
work that I think are too idealistic to adapt to life. Even in
communist/socialist states[1]
private property was allowed from time to time and ironically the Russian Communist
Party members were the ones who had private property in forms of cottages etc. (Duvall 1992) . It is also naive to
think that without private property leaders will not desire private gain.
Property is not the only thing people strive for. The feeling of power that
comes from leadership is a private gain which the leader would not want to give
up easily, because of simple human nature. As can be seen from my claims
Platos’ leadership theory was too abstract and lacked the crucial element,
realism.
Another
strong aspect that exists in Machiavelli but lacks in Plato is practical use in
other words, pragmatic approach. Before I start, I would like to indicate why I
am mentioning pragmatism and realism in different paragraphs. Realism is the
way how you see life. On the other hand pragmatism is the way you act towards
life. As you can see there is a big difference between them. In his book
Machiavelli takes a pragmatic approach towards life for leaders. In his book he
states that a wise lord will not keep good faith if the reasons he pledged
exist no longer or his good faith is exploited (Chapter 18). Here we can see
his pragmatism more clearly. He shows us that for the sake of being idealistic
and being honest a leader should not blindly stay behind his words. That kind
of behavior can backfire easily and result in leader losing his throne. Another
statement where we can see his pragmatic approach is in Chapter 19 where he
advises the leader to please the class that has the most power. Hence, if the
soldiers have more influence over the state, the king should advocate war. If
the people have more influence over the state, the king should be tempted to
peace. An important factor of Machiavelli’s pragmatism is his emphasis on
modesty. In nearly all his chapters he suggests the leader to take a humble
path. For instance, on being despised and hated he states that even if the most
influential class is soldiers the leaders should not be too cruel and if the
most influential class is ordinary people he should not be too kind. In both
scenarios he would be overthrown either by the people for being cruel and by
the soldiers for being too kind (Chapter 19). In Platos’ work it is nearly
impossible to see any pragmatism and therefore practical use. He formulates
everything and regards society as robots. He strictly divides the society to
three classes which are soldiers, rulers and people (415a). He gives all of
them different tasks and prohibits any vertical movement among classes. He
supports censorship for some literary material, such as drama and poetry
(395c). It seems like Plato is creating an ideology rather than a Utopia. I
believe that ideologies are never adequate enough to rule a state, because by
accepting ideologies you close all the doors to different ideas which might
have better answers to some subjects. Therefore, for a leader pragmatism is an
important quality to have in order to rule the country in a successful manner.
I must express that the pragmatism Machiavelli is talking about is not
selfishness. Machiavellis’ pragmatism is about the greater good (the state).
Thus, the leaders actions’ utility measurement criteria should be the benefit
it provides to his people in general.
The biggest objection to Machiavellis’ leadership
theory is the lack of morality in “Prince”. The lack of morality is so
notorious that the word “Machiavellian” is used as a synonym to deception and
dishonesty. His main motto for leaders is “if a ruler wishes to reach his
highest goals, he will not always find it rational to be moral (Lukes, 563).
More clearly “end justifies the means”. Plato, is the opposite of Machiavelli.
He held virtues over anything else. The social stratification he created
represented three virtues: wisdom for rulers, courage for soldiers and
moderation for subjects. Thus, does the value of morality emphasized on Plato
make his leadership theory better than Machiavellis’? I have to disagree here.
Virtues are definitely important for ordinary people and it is important for
the leaders, too. However, it is not essential to possess them for a leader.
The essential thing is to have the mindset to change if needed. Here, you can
see that Machiavelli holds virtues important, but does not ennoble them like
Plato. He knows that politics cannot be executed with solely good virtues,
because you cannot expect rival states to have the same merits as yours. Thus,
a leader should hold virtues important but must be careful and if needed should
be able to act the opposite. In contemporary politics we can observe these
qualities in a lot of leaders. For example, during the Independence War Grand
National Assembly with orders from Ataturk trialed and executed rebels who were
against the assembly. Even though some of them were provocateurs, an undeniable
portion of them were civilians who had no guilt other than believing the
provocateurs. If the National Assembly had taken this into account and did not
execute them, the riots would have spread to the whole country. Another example
is Lenin. After an unsuccessful assassination against him he started the Red
Terror and killed many of his opposers (Lefebvre, 143). If he did not commit
these crimes he probably would have been killed by his opposers and Soviets
would have been in an anarchic state. It must be realized that “desperate times
need desperate measures” and crisis management is an important ability in
leadership. Therefore a naive humanistic approach would not suffice for a
leader in ruling his country. He nearly always has to make a trade-off, because
there are always two opposing fractions when he is giving decisions. In the
Turkish case, if the National Assembly approached the problem in a humanistic
way and let the riots spread, the Independence War would be lost and Turkey as
we know would not exist. The ones executed would be pro-Revolution.
To conclude, being a leader is different from being
an ordinary man, because you have two identities. One is his own identity, the
other one is his embodiment to his country. Thus, a leader may have to
contradict with his identity from time to time for the benefit of his country.
He might have to make decisions that are the total opposite of his beliefs.
Therefore, a modern leader cannot be as idealistic as Platos’ leadership theory
states. As a result, I think that Machiavelli has a more convincing leadership theory than Platos’ and it reflects to modern
times better.
Works
Cited
Plato, Republic (Ed) M.G.A Grube, Hackett:
London, 1992
Machiavelli, “The Prince”. Selected Political
Writings (Ed) David Wootton. Hackett: Indianapolis,
1994
Stalin. Directed
by Ivan Passer. Performed by Rubert Duvall. 1992.
J. Lukes, Timothy. “Lionizing Machiavelli”. The
American Political Science Review Vol. 95,
No. 3. September 2001. Internet url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3118233
(Date accessed 5 March 2012)
[1] Even though Plato wanted
the abolishment of private property for the leader class and the
communist/socialist states wanted the abolishment of private property in all
classes, these states were the closest ones that had a similar view on private property
as Platon.
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