Basics, Part 2
The Prince
Like the
communists of today, Niccolò Machiavelli 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, as well as in “contemporary affairs”.
Machiavelli’s
“Prince” was written about 500 years ago, in Florence, Italy, and published in
1512. According to Karl Marx, the sixteenth century (1501-1600) 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
Machiavelli’s work in particular has been foundational for politicians and for
political thought during 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 above), in the
hope that the young man would give Machiavelli a job as a consultant, consigliero, or something of that 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 in conception from a Communist University “Generic Course”.
The chapter, in the
attached 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 in
advance, 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 eternal fame.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Four selected parts
from The Prince, by Machiavelli.
· A
PDF file of the reading text is attached
· To
download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
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