Washingtonians love to use the word “machiavellian.” It is one of our favorite adjectives, describing the pursuit of political ends without regard for the morality of the means employed. That is my definition, but as with most words it can convey multiple concepts; it can be employed equivically. Because we hear it so much in this town I want to talk about how we use it, and what we take it to mean when we hear it.
A lot of political commentators love to use sports-derived terms like “hardball,” “powerplay,” and “strongarm” to denote the sort of ruthless, tough-minded competitiveness that is admired among the political chattering class. Describing someone’s politics as “machiavellian” conveys a similar meaning, but because it is a word drawn from intellectual history it makes both the described and the describer seem inherently more clever, nuanced, and intellectually impressive. The very sound of the word makes one appear sly as one uses it, its six syllable combination of some of English’s most menacing consonants conveying intelligence and a villainous understanding of human nature. The word has a sinister, dark quality to it; one imagines a godfather-esque scene, looking through the closing door of a power-brokers office as dark suited men emerge from a side entrance to brief him.
When used in Washington, however, my impression is that these darker qualities don’t carry throughout a room to provoke a sense of disapproving judgement. More often, an audience here interprets the word as denoting efficiency, shrewd cunning, and competency. That such thinking is admired says a lot about what Washingtonians consider to be political virtue. Look no further than Netflix’s “House of Cards,”and politicos’ obsession with it, to to see how easily the dark side of politics can be glorified, and how easily accepted it can be in that form. Francis Underwood may be a murderer, but his Congress passes bills.
This, at least, is my impression of what we in Washington take the word to mean. Surely, though, the appropriate definition of the word is to be derived from the man eponymous with it: Niccolo Machiavelli. Born in 1469, he would be a contemporary of Castiglione (see previous post) for some 49 years, and in the same profession: a courtier. His political career would struggle with the same major crisis: the Italian Wars, and in particular attempts by the Medici to dominate Florence. Imprisoned and tortured after the Medici reasserted control over Florence in 1512, he would retire to the country and spend the rest of his life studying the classics and writing. His work spans genres, including dramas, a history of Florence, discourses on the Roman historian Livy, and, most notably, political philosophy. His most famous book, The Prince, represents one of the first examples of modern political thought: philosophy focused on achieving ends, instead of discovering them. No less eminent an authority than Leo Strauss claims that modern political philosophy begins with Machiavelli because of this focus on questions of “how” instead of “what.” Whereas the Greeks and Medievals debated the character and constitution of the ideal regime, Machiavelli shifted the focus of philosophy onto identifying the means of attaining it and the conduct of political action. The idea of virtue changed from an unattainable ideal to be strived for, and into that which can be made actual. Political virtue became the art of accomplishment through political means.
Politics is made actual by its practitioners, and it is thus important to remember that Machiavelli was more than an idle philosopher. As a work of a courtier, The Prince fulfills the most obvious political function of the profession: providing advice to the prince on how to achieve political ends. This service is what keeps politically-minded courtiers who are financially deficient or otherwise useless and unskilled at court; in The Prince’s dedicatory, Machiavelli offers his book to Lorenzo d’Medici to win favor in the same way that others offer “horses, arms, vestments of gold cloth, precious stones, and similar ornaments suited to their greatness.” Lorenzo de’ Medici was the very man who had crushed the republican government under which Machiavelli served and who, in the process, had had Machiavelli placed under torture and forced into retirement in the country. The Prince was Machiavelli’s attempt to return himself to favor. If we are to take it as an archetypical work of political thought, the lesson learned must be that political advice reflects the aspirations of the advisor as much as the advised.
We train ourselves to think in the form of The Prince in our modern political education, which focuses almost exclusively on policy and the practical application of political science to achieve certain ends. We do not spend a lot of time debating the aspects of an ideal polity, like the Greeks; we focus on the means of achieving ends, whatever they may be. Schools of politics produce practitioners of the political trade, the modern equivalent of courtiers: bureaucrats, technocrats, wonks. The political skills they offer represent their bid for a place in government.
The modern descendent of The Prince, as the work of a political advisor, is the policy paper, which presents to a leader what steps he should take to achieve a certain end. The particular end strived for in The Prince was the creation of an Italian nation-state to bring an end to foreign intervention and the chaos of the Italian Wars; the means were war, subterfuge, and strong governance. Somewhat ironically, The Prince is no longer read at many “policy” schools because its particular policy arguments are antiquated. Its primary use to a wonk is mistaken to be a tool to enhance the perception of one’s intelligence.
This is emphasized by Machiavelli's great quotability. Pithy lines like: “it is much safer to be feared than loved” or “A prince… must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he take anything as his profession but war, its institutions, and its discipline.” and “It is necessary for a prince… to learn how not to be good” have created the modern idea of “machiavellian” as the epitome of unscrupulous scheming. When attached to the idea of competency, however, this modern conception of “machiavellian” is remarkably close to Machiavelli’s original thinking: that political virtue is the ability to make actual political accomplishments, whatever the means.
The problem is that “machiavellian” virtue holds sway in a town whose institutions have become anything but competent. We take for granted that politics is dirty, disagreeable, and dark but also incapable of accomplishment. Lacking political accomplishments, it seems that Washington has come to regard some of the worst human behavior as ideals in themselves. We worship at an altar to viciousness, awaiting divine favors that do not arrive.
My point here is not to claim that Machiavelli was wrong, but that we use him incorrectly. Machiavelli was advising the prince, not his courtiers. The lesson too many in Washington seem to take from him is that they should act like princes when they are still merely advisors, and a good advisor cannot be a prince: “When you see that an advisor thinks more about himself than about you, and that in all his deeds he seeks his own self-interest, such a man as this will never be a good advisor and you will never be able to trust him; for a man who has the state of another in his hand must never think about himself but always about his prince, and he must never be concerned with anything that does not concern his prince.” As a democracy, we encourage the idea that each man is a lord over his own castle. Washington’s division of power deliberately denies the President, the true prince if any, the ability to crush opposition the way Machiavelli desires. And the modern court of Washington expands every year with more courtiers whose ambition is to behave as princely as possible. The way we use the idea of the “machiavellian” serves more to corrupt our souls and constitution than it does to advance truly Machiavellian political virtue.
