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Machiavelli: The Original Logan Roy?
Sage, realist, genius or devil? Machiavelli – the 16th-century Florentine statesman, philosopher and author – not so much divides opinion as dices it.
I n 1513, or thereabouts, Niccolò Machiavelli penned his political treatise The Prince, a volume that has been analysed, derided, lauded and argued over ever since.
The basic principle – for want of a better word – behind The Prince is that you need to get dirty to get ahead. Still published half a millennium after its initial publication, Machiavelli’s book is pitched as an “uncompromising manual of statecraft” by Penguin Classics. It is a “tough-minded, pragmatic handbook on how power really works.” You could call it a kind of Rough Guide to Backstabbing, and its contemporary relevance will ensure no small interest in a previously unrecorded first edition of Il principe, as it’s known in Italian, that’s heading to auction at Sotheby’s London on 12 December.
Machiavelli’s classic has had such an enduring impact that it has spawned the adjective “Machiavellian” – meaning a murky mix of conniving, changeable, immoral, unreliable and ruthless. As a modus operandi it has proven hugely popular of late, especially in politics. Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi have all been accused of Machiavellian misbehaviour. Others have aligned tech bros and tycoons with Niccolò’s views. In March 2024, Elon Musk posted: “Machiavelli was an armchair quarterback.” Which, one assumes, was a compliment.
Rory Stewart, a writer and former Conservative Member of Parliament in Britain, recently delivered a lecture on the Italian author. “Machiavelli is the great villain in politics,” states Stewart, whilst acknowledging that he “has had an extraordinary 500-year career. You can barely get on the tube without seeing aspiring young businesspeople reading Machiavelli’s The Prince.”
To Machiavelli, the end always justifies the means. But this, of course, presumes that the end is virtuous (which is entirely subjective). The constant tack and jibe involved in Machiavelli’s political sailing might simply be called Realpolitik – the pragmatic stance taken by Henry Kissenger, Charles de Gaulle and many others. But, as Rory Stewart mentions, the flaw with flitting about to the prevailing wind is the result itself: changeable politicians with inconsistent policies.
‘Machiavelli is much misunderstood… In fact, Machiavelli wasn’t at all Machiavellian.’
- Jonathan Powell, ‘The New Machiavelli’
In The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World, Jonathan Powell – the former chief of staff to Tony Blair – equates Machiavelli’s Renaissance maxims, literally and without irony, to events and strategies played out during the Blair years. Powell is clearly a fanboy. “Machiavelli is much misunderstood,” he insists. “In fact, Machiavelli wasn’t at all Machiavellian.”
Meanwhile, Leo Strauss, the 20th-century American scholar of political philosophy, went so far as to describe Machiavelli as a “teacher of evil”. However, he acknowledges that taking such a viewpoint involves a certain amount of virtue signalling. “We are in sympathy,” he writes, “with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [being his wickedness], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.”
One of the problems – or perhaps benefits – of Machiavellian manoeuvres is that they’re often dramatic and, at least from a detached perspective, entertaining. From Francis Underwood in House of Cards to J. R. Ewing in Dallas to Logan Roy in Succession, television villains – mostly men at the helm of multinational corporations or political administrations – follow Machiavelli’s lead. And, largely, to successful ends. Until, of course, they meet a grisly end (something of a side effect to Machiavellian thinking).
Some critics have suggested that The Prince is a satire on despots, such as the worst of the Medici (not unlike American Psycho was a satire on the yuppie excess of the late 1980s). Not a guide to deception at all, but rather a cautionary tale. Others believe that the book was meant as an explanation to the masses on how to gain the kind of advantage so breezily enjoyed by the aristocracy. Perhaps, Machiavelli can only really be seen through the prism of the reader’s time.
The “strongman” figure, so prevalent in contemporary politics and business is a libertarian to some, a devious brute to others. The Prince plays into these narratives. It combines them; in fact, Machiavelli would have you believe that to become a free-thinking libertarian you first need to be an unprincipled bounder, a chicken-and-bad-egg conundrum that has kept politicians, literary critics and the electorate circling his thesis for the past five centuries. And it is likely we will still be in its orbit in another five.
