The Prince
As befits a “Basic” series we now start to stretch our
historical perspective with Machiavelli who like the communists of today
cultivated “long experience in contemporary affairs and a continual study of
antiquity”. Both Machiavelli and Marx were familiar with the politics of
ancient Greece and Rome.
Machiavelli’s “Prince” was written about 500 years ago, in
Florence, Italy, and published in 1512. According to Karl Marx the sixteenth
century was when capitalism first arose on the earth, especially in the
Netherlands and in England, but it was Italy that had the most developed
political culture at that time.
Hence “The Prince”
appeared much earlier than the first writings on Political Economy such as
those by Thomas Hobbes, William Petty and Nicholas Barbon, which appeared
between 1650 and 1700. Karl Marx was familiar with all of these, and with
Machiavelli’s work, which has been foundational for politicians throughout the five
centuries of its existence.
Machiavelli was
needing employment when he wrote this user-friendly text for the 20-year-old
Florentine prince Lorenzo di Piero De’ Medici (pictured), in the hope
that the young man would give Machiavelli a job as a consultant, or something
of the sort. No job resulted for Machiavelli but what he left us as a result of
this attempt was a set of “short texts” of very frank and still-useful
political education, not very different from a Communist University “Generic Course”.
The chapter in this selection of four that corresponds most
closely to the politics of today is Chapter IX, “Concerning a Civil
Principality”. All of them are very interesting and all contain advice
that is still good after 500 years. Our discussion should be about this advice.
If people have not read the material, one chapter could be selected and read out
loud. The chapters are very short, but powerful.
Machiavelli had a good basic understanding of class
politics, which is perhaps why his works were put on the Pope’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of
Forbidden Books) not long after his death – thereby quickly guaranteeing their
fame.
Please download and read the text via the
following link:
Further reading:
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