The Auron MacIntyre Show - Machiavelli： How Virtue Can Ruin a Prince ｜ 4⧸15⧸26

00:00:00.780 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I am Oren McIntyre.

00:00:05.720 Before we get started, I just want to let you know that the new show, Stu and Dave Do America,

00:00:11.900 is premiering on Blaze TV. Stu is one of the nicest guys you'll meet in the business. He's

00:00:16.920 clever, he's insightful. Dave is, of course, hilarious, and together they're going to have

00:00:21.060 a fantastic show, so make sure you check it out on Blaze TV now. All right, guys, so today

00:00:28.580 we're going to be continuing our series on Machiavelli's The Prince. I'm reading my way

00:00:33.600 through this book. It's relatively short, usually under 100 pages, depending on what format you get.

00:00:39.320 But most people still haven't read it. They've heard about it. They've heard it discussed.

00:00:42.980 They've heard some of the ideas vaguely behind it, but they haven't really delved in. And that's

00:00:47.320 a shame because, again, it's such a short read. Complex, to be sure. Something worth rereading

00:00:52.540 multiple times, but still something that pretty much everyone can get under their belt. So that's

00:00:57.200 why I'm going through it together with you guys so we can read understand pull apart what's

00:01:02.500 happening here and get a better grasp of what Machiavelli was thinking if you want to go back

00:01:07.740 and watch previous episodes then of course there is a playlist on the YouTube channel that enables

00:01:13.280 you to do that they're all in order so you can just read the prints along with me but of course

00:01:17.620 each one of these episodes is good in and of itself has self-contained lessons we can learn

00:01:22.360 so you don't have to watch them all if you don't want to that said we are picking up with Machiavelli

00:01:28.480 discussing different forms of armies he just got done talking about mercenaries and the danger of

00:01:34.720 mercenaries this is a key part in Machiavelli talking about the need to win under your own

00:01:39.900 sword and that won't be going away in this section we're going to see multiple times how critical he

00:01:45.500 believes it is for us to have a understanding of how power works and how it's attached to violence

00:01:52.040 that ultimately you have to be the one that controls the monopoly on violence that controls

00:01:57.440 how violence is being done and if you don't you simply aren't a ruler someone else is handling

00:02:02.260 that for you so that said let's jump in we're in chapter 13 of Machiavelli uh Machiavelli's the

00:02:10.160 prince so he says auxiliary armies which are what you have when you call on some other ruler to come

00:02:18.080 with his forces to help you defend your town are the other useless kind of armed force pope julius

00:02:25.100 tried them very recently having seen how miserably his mercenaries performed in his

00:02:31.360 pharaoh campaign he turned to auxiliaries and arranged with king ferdinand of spain to come

00:02:36.760 to his assistance with men and arms such an army may be useful and good in itself but they're

00:02:42.840 almost never helpful to a ruler who asks for them to come across to help him. If they lose,

00:02:48.540 he loses. If they win, he is their prisoner. So right away, he says, look, okay, we've talked

00:02:53.780 about mercenaries. They're just for hire, right? So the difference between a mercenary and an

00:02:58.280 auxiliary is a mercenary is a troop of guys who are completely unconnected to some kind of ruling

00:03:05.040 class, some kind of state. They're not serving a particular lord or royal force or anything,

00:03:11.240 and they are going to be hired out.

00:03:13.640 They're hired guns, right?

00:03:15.620 They're inconsistent because they're only doing it for pay.

00:03:18.280 They don't care about you

00:03:19.580 and they will usually fold under pressure.

00:03:22.180 He says the other type are auxiliaries

00:03:24.440 and auxiliaries are another form of army you don't control.

00:03:28.340 They're troops you borrow from someone else.

00:03:30.980 And the problem with winning with auxiliaries

00:03:33.340 is obviously if they come and help you,

00:03:35.660 if another country, another prince, another ruler

00:03:38.320 gives you use of their armies,

00:03:40.080 they might be good in battle right they might be better than mercenaries because they are loyal to

00:03:45.520 someone they are still following the orders of uh you know some other king that they are actually

00:03:51.120 loyal to some other lord that they really adhere to so they're not as uh you know shifty as

00:03:56.220 mercenaries in that way however the problem is you know if you lose well you know you lost so

00:04:01.740 that that's no good but if you win you're kind of the prisoner of those of those auxiliaries because

00:04:06.940 they are commanded ultimately by someone else yes those swords won you the day they won you a battle

00:04:14.360 but are they really yours like at once you have conquered do you really control them because

00:04:20.300 they're the guys with the swords on the ground so now they control the area right you don't

00:04:25.220 ultimately have total control over them and one way you can think about this is uh perhaps uh some

00:04:32.060 of what's going on with Iran, right? We're looking at using to some extent Israel's arms and Israel's 0.75

00:04:40.880 certainly to some extent using our arms in this battle. And because that's the case, yes, those 0.82

00:04:48.220 arms might be useful to each other, but we don't have total control over them, right? If that army

00:04:53.480 goes out and does something, and we've already seen this multiple times where Israel goes out 0.93

00:04:57.580 and does something we don't want them to do in a moment we have no control over it so yeah we might

00:05:02.440 be winning certain battles or some certain things might be easier because of the presence of

00:05:07.260 Israeli forces but do we ultimately have control over the area are we really winning control of

00:05:13.640 the areas that we take under those swords the same is true of course reverse wise Israel doesn't get

00:05:19.920 to dictate certain terms because it's really the United States doing the bulk of the actual

00:05:25.120 fighting and so no one sovereign is actually in control of the war actually in control of what's

00:05:31.880 going on this is also a huge problem with things like people who say oh well we need israel for

00:05:36.680 its intelligence forces they they give us good intelligence well that's nice but if we need

00:05:42.700 someone else's troops so we need someone else's auxiliaries in uh the intelligence uh realm then

00:05:49.780 we're not really sovereign over that we don't control the flow of information we don't decide

00:05:53.600 who they spy on or when they spy or how they obtain it and if that information is completely

00:05:58.500 true there if there's other alternative motives we can't trust it entirely because it's not really

00:06:03.920 ours and that's what Machiavelli is saying when you when it comes to winning in any kind of

00:06:09.340 conflict you want to own the actual means of conquest because if you're handing that off to

00:06:14.920 somebody else if you're using someone else that might seem clever in the moment you might get the

00:06:18.960 swords, but ultimately the victory isn't really yours. And that's always something that Machiavelli

00:06:24.460 is very, very focused on. There are plenty of examples in ancient history, but I want to stay

00:06:30.500 with Pope Julius II, obviously a dangerous decision to put himself at the mercy of a 1.00

00:06:36.340 foreigner in his desire to get Ferrara. But his good fortune brought a third element into the 0.87

00:06:42.640 equation, saving him from the likely consequences of his rash choice. His Spanish auxiliaries were

00:06:49.580 defeated by the Ravenna, the Swiss, to his and everyone's surprise, rose up and drove out the

00:06:55.940 French conquerors. So Julius didn't become a prisoner of his enemies because they fled,

00:07:00.500 or of his auxiliaries because they hadn't given him his victory. But that was incredibly good

00:07:08.060 luck, and it doesn't make the Pope's behavior sensible. When the defenseless Florentines sent 0.95

00:07:13.220 10,000 Frenchmen to take Pisa on their behalf, they exposed themselves to more danger than they 0.53

00:07:19.300 had been in before. The Emperor of Constantinople, wanting to fend off his neighbors, brought 10,000

00:07:26.060 Turks into Greece. When the war was over, those Turks didn't want to leave. This was the start of

00:07:30.720 the Greeks' domination by the infidels. So he's giving you examples of times where auxiliaries 1.00

00:07:36.320 have been brought in okay the pope wants to win this or okay the the emperor of constantinople

00:07:41.940 wants to bring the to win this he brings in these troops okay they're going to help me win this 0.95

00:07:46.260 victory and they do but once you've won it you have a bunch of foreigners with arms who are 0.97

00:07:53.540 responsible for you no longer having an enemy and that's great that you no longer have the enemy but 0.98

00:07:58.540 now you have the foreigners with the swords what if they don't want to leave what if they like the

00:08:02.480 stuff you have what if they like the idea of being in charge of this area obviously you couldn't 0.99

00:08:07.220 defeat the enemy without them and they know that and now they're in your area if you couldn't

00:08:12.100 defeat the enemy with or now they're in your area if you couldn't defeat the enemy without them you

00:08:17.620 probably can't defeat them either and now they're in charge this is what he fears who should use

00:08:23.360 auxiliaries then someone who wants to lose a battle auxiliaries are more uh are much more risky

00:08:28.840 than mercenaries because with them the disaster is ready made an auxiliary army is united in its

00:08:34.260 obedience to someone other than you when a mercenary army has won your battle for you

00:08:39.900 it will need time and good opportunity to do to you any harm they uh they don't constitute a

00:08:45.740 tightly bound unit you choose them you pay them and the outsider uh whom you have put in command

00:08:51.880 of them won't immediately have enough authority to harm you what is most dangerous about mercenaries

00:08:56.880 is their reluctance to fight that is what is most dangerous about auxiliaries is their virtue so

00:09:04.420 we see here that Machiavelli as much as he hates mercenaries actually hates auxiliaries more and

00:09:12.140 for the very simple reason that mercenaries at least they're this loose band of guys they're

00:09:16.520 not really loyal to anybody they're only there for the money they're not really listening to

00:09:20.340 their captain they're not really looking to die for you so they have all these weaknesses but

00:09:24.800 ultimately at least if they help you win a battle you know they're gonna if they want to double back

00:09:29.300 you know double cross you if they want to betray you they want to backstab you they're going to

00:09:34.260 have to rally together motivate each other work together find ways to you know gather support

00:09:41.160 that it's going to be a process if they manage to do it the auxiliaries don't they're already under

00:09:47.020 the control of someone else they already have a binding ethos that is going to allow them to

00:09:53.140 organize and turn on you the minute they have the advantage so the problem with auxiliaries is that

00:09:58.920 while the mercenaries might betray you the auxiliaries almost certainly will through just

00:10:03.560 the sheer mechanism of already having that binding command that the fact that they already serve a

00:10:09.480 leader Machiavelli again the the father of elite theory always believes that leadership is critical

00:10:15.300 and that's what actually derives power so he recognizes the problem here there's been an

00:10:20.800 interesting debate recently a lot of people are very concerned about israel's influence in the

00:10:26.480 united states and other western nations and so the people who are concerned about this have been

00:10:31.940 saying well we need uh muslims to like we need to team up with muslims uh which i know sounds 0.89

00:10:38.880 insane but people are like yeah that's the ticket like that they'll help us push out this israeli

00:10:44.240 influence now the problem is there's a lot of problems with that but the biggest problem with

00:10:50.580 that is the idea that you can win under their sword right that if you team up with these people

00:10:56.180 and you use their force and their pressure that ultimately they'll help you defeat a shared enemy

00:11:02.120 and then you'll go your own ways but this is exactly what Machiavelli warns you about this 0.76

00:11:07.540 is exactly what he warns you about because once Muslims have driven out whatever influence that

00:11:13.580 Israel has in your country once they have done that they're not just walking away they're not 0.96

00:11:18.520 going home like these are people you brought in and they're violent like that's part of what 0.97

00:11:25.500 you're looking for right is i guess like ultimately that they're they're going to be you know some

00:11:30.440 kind of foot soldier at some level no like these people don't work for you like they might team up

00:11:36.200 for you with you for a second because you they think there's some kind of advantage but there

00:11:40.600 is no way that they are going to ultimately be on your side in fact they're probably now going to

00:11:45.540 be in your country being more violent and they're going to want to take over because of course they

00:11:50.840 are if you couldn't expel the problem they're they're certainly uh not going to then expect

00:11:56.280 you to expel them right just as uh as uh Machiavelli points out here so winning under you know some 0.94

00:12:04.160 alliance with Islam some some use of their auxiliaries I mean again just a million reasons 0.99

00:12:10.700 why that's wrong but here Machiavelli just shows us one like basic tactic like even if you approve 0.92

00:12:17.060 of the morality and everything else and all the story nines and narratives that would drive you

00:12:21.560 to that decision you're still setting yourself up for failure because even if you succeed in your

00:12:26.080 task these people are going to betray you they're going to take over that's the whole point they're

00:12:31.320 auxiliaries you don't control them and even worse not only do you not control them something else

00:12:35.900 does something else binds them together some other identity some other mission drives them

00:12:41.220 to do terrible things to betray you so just a horrible horrible idea and this is why Machiavelli

00:12:47.360 is always useful right we can apply these lessons to many many situations you must always win under

00:12:55.160 your own arms you must always win under your own understanding you cannot farm this out to someone

00:13:03.320 else. So the wise prince has always avoided mercenaries and auxiliaries, relying instead on

00:13:09.640 his own men, preferring a defeat with them than a victory with foreign troops, because he doesn't

00:13:16.220 think that that would be a real victory. Again, no victory with a foreign army is a victory.

00:13:24.280 I never hesitate to cite Caesar Borgia and his actions. This duke entered Romagna with auxiliaries, 0.96

00:13:29.660 And the only soldiers he had were French.

00:13:31.940 And with them, he captured Amoli and Forli.

00:13:35.440 But he came to think that these forces weren't reliable.

00:13:38.720 So he turned to the Orsini and Vitelli troops, mercenaries, thinking them to be safer.

00:13:44.160 But they turned out to be dangerous also, unreliable in battle and disloyal.

00:13:48.700 So he got rid of them, disbanded the troops, killing their leaders, and turned to his own men.

00:13:53.680 The difference between a homegrown army and those others can easily be seen in what happened to the Duke's reputation as he moved from the French to the Orsini and Vitelli and from them to relying on his own soldiers, whose loyalty to him increased as time went on.

00:14:16.100 He was never esteemed more highly than when everyone saw that he was a complete master of his own army.

00:14:22.140 so this is important not just because you know these troops are going to betray you and all the

00:14:27.000 other liabilities we talked about but also it gives the ruler a certain air of respect the

00:14:32.960 fact that you can command your own army that you don't need someone else but you're not relying on

00:14:37.360 someone else coalitions are actually bad not good if you can win under your own power you should and

00:14:43.600 you should always prefer to in the modern world we like to distribute responsibility right this is

00:14:49.260 like just this is a general rule you know this is why we we like the idea of democracy and all

00:14:55.000 these things it distributes responsibility you know no one person is actually at fault it's a

00:15:00.060 it's it's all these you know thousands or millions of people who voted that kind of thing well our

00:15:04.720 ruling class also likes to distribute it when it comes to geopolitics they like to say oh no we're

00:15:10.080 a coalition of armies going to fight it's never the u.s versus this one person and israel doesn't

00:15:15.960 want to just be them against this other person. They want this coalition, but that's actually

00:15:20.240 bad. That's, that's what Machiavelli is saying. You need to have one person for all the reasons

00:15:25.560 we discussed with auxiliaries and mercenaries, but also because it gives confidence that you

00:15:30.700 are capable. If you're constantly relying on others, if you're always trying to shift blame,

00:15:35.980 shift responsibility, well, people are not going to respect you. I plan to stay with recent events

00:15:41.860 in italy but i can't omit hiero of syracuse whom i have already mentioned in the passage where i

00:15:47.360 reported that syracusans have been commanded gave him command of their army in the third century bc

00:15:54.620 he soon discovered that the mercenary element in his army was useless because it was led except

00:16:01.200 from the very top by officers much like our recent mercenary commanders he didn't think he could

00:16:06.720 retain the services of the mercenaries or disband them so he arranged to have them cut to pieces

00:16:11.960 from then forward he made war using his forces and not forders you notice that the solution

00:16:17.580 whenever anyone learns about the problems of mercenaries is you have to kill them right he

00:16:22.660 says that the italian leaders uh you know caesar borgia killed all the generals make sure that

00:16:27.380 those mercenaries no longer have a leader in hiero's hiero syracuse's uh situation he just

00:16:34.560 kills everybody because you can't have these bands roaming around. Once you realize they are no longer

00:16:39.960 of use to you, once you realize that they're dangerous, you have to get rid of them in a

00:16:44.380 permanent sense. So that's how dangerous these forces are. That's how much you don't want to

00:16:50.700 give them power. If you ever cut them loose, you basically have to kill them all. A certain Old

00:16:56.420 Testament episode is relevant here. David volunteered to fight the Philistine champion

00:17:02.660 and Goliath, and Saul tried to encourage him by letting him use Saul's own armor. David tried it

00:17:08.540 on and immediately rejected it, saying he couldn't use it and wanted to meet the enemy with his own

00:17:13.300 sling and knife. The moral is that someone else's armor will fall from your back or weigh you down

00:17:18.460 or hamper your movement. So here we get a biblical reference, which is interesting for Machiavelli

00:17:24.980 because we know him and, you know, him and Christianity are not exactly best of friends,

00:17:29.300 but of course he knows this is going to be a reference everyone understands. He knows that

00:17:32.660 the bible is is not just a religious belief it is a cultural touchstone to which all things must

00:17:39.560 ultimately come back you you will reference it ultimately if you're trying to understand what's

00:17:44.620 going on so he says look Saul was in the situation where the you know Goliath comes out and is

00:17:51.640 taunting him and he won't go fight right like this is what princes are supposed to do they're supposed

00:17:57.180 to do their own fighting Machiavelli has and we'll get into that in a later chapter but Machiavelli

00:18:01.920 has no patience for princes that themselves do not fight that that is a bad move and not only are

00:18:08.120 you not fighting you're waiting for a little shepherd boy to go fight and he rejects all of

00:18:13.260 your arms he says no i'm going to win under my own arms or you know with the help of god here

00:18:17.180 but there will be no part of saul's uh victory no part of this victory that saul can claim right

00:18:24.600 his his sword was rejected his armor was rejected david needs none of those things and of course

00:18:30.540 over time david's reputation if you know the rest of the story eats at saul's power eats at his

00:18:35.500 sovereignty because anytime saul goes out you know oh saul slayed his thousands david slayed his

00:18:43.060 tens of thousands people are constantly reminding saul that david is the superior warrior and

00:18:48.280 therefore he becomes jealous because he knows that the superior warrior deserves to be king

00:18:53.180 this is an ancient understanding of power he who does the fighting ultimately has the credibility

00:19:01.440 and so they say this is a dangerous position to put yourself in because once people see

00:19:06.660 that you're not the one who is capable of the violence of bringing the peace of doing the

00:19:11.460 fighting they are not going to trust you all right charles the seventh of france by fortune

00:19:20.180 and virtue liberated france from the english and he saw the need to be armed with forces of his own

00:19:26.840 and passed laws to establish a national army with cavalry and infantry infantry his son louis the

00:19:33.760 11th later abolished the infantry and began to enlist swiss mercenary soldiers that was the

00:19:38.440 first of a series of blunders blunders which as anyone can now see led the kingdom into great

00:19:43.240 danger raising the reputation of the swiss he was depressed that stand depressed the standing of his

00:19:49.520 own army he was uh he has disbanded the infantry forcing his cavalry to depend on foreign infantry

00:19:57.320 and they are now so accustomed to fighting along with the swiss that they seem not to be able to

00:20:02.280 win any battles without them the upshot is that france cannot stand without uh where to go uh

00:20:08.480 the upshot is that france cannot stand against uh the swiss and that they can't do well against

00:20:13.560 others without the help of the Swiss. The armies of the French then have become entirely, lost it

00:20:19.760 again. The armies of the French then have become entirely mixed, partly mercenaries and partly

00:20:25.940 national, i.e. composed of citizen soldiers. Such a mixed force is much better than a purely

00:20:32.980 mercenary one or one composed entirely of auxiliaries, but it is still nowhere near as good

00:20:38.160 as a purely citizen army the french example proved this the freedom of france could have been

00:20:43.880 invincible if uh charles military system had been developed or at least maintained all right so this

00:20:50.740 is a really interesting thing because a lot today we hear about how ultimately america is a team

00:20:57.560 right and we should be bringing people in uh you know because they're gonna benefit us and they're

00:21:02.400 the best at what they do and uh we're like a sports team you know you you go out you don't

00:21:06.240 just hire people from your region. You will go out and you bring people from all over and you'll

00:21:10.860 be the best team in the world. And of course, that's true to some extent. But what we see in

00:21:14.380 the sports world is this makes people unloyal. We have pros that come in for a year. They don't

00:21:20.740 care about the city they're in. They don't care about the fans or the people. They're just there

00:21:24.320 for a dollar. They'll be gone the next year. And this makes people treat the team as like something

00:21:29.220 commercial and transient. It's not something that they're ultimately loyal to, right? Same thing

00:21:36.060 is true when it comes to mercenaries yes you can hire the swiss as he points out here but if you 0.81

00:21:42.500 hire them because they're better than your normal troops and then your troops are entirely dependent

00:21:47.480 on them that means one you can't ever fight them you're kind of subject in some way to them because

00:21:52.180 you're relying on them and they get a say in everything you do right you can't go out on your

00:21:57.660 own and do anything else you can become entirely dependent on a foreign uh a foreign actor and

00:22:04.680 that's no good. We should remember that when we're also talking about our own nation. Yes,

00:22:09.320 technically we could go out and get the smartest person in China or, you know, the wisest person

00:22:15.280 in something else, the most advanced person in something, the most talented person all around

00:22:19.740 the world. But those people will never really be American. They're never going to be loyal to

00:22:25.200 America in the same way. So yes, we could technically assemble the best team, but we're

00:22:31.100 entirely dependent on people at the end of the day that don't really care about us. And so we're

00:22:36.200 putting ourselves in incredibly vulnerable position. Yeah, our team might be slightly

00:22:39.920 worse technically by not bringing in all these foreign actors, but ultimately we have a more

00:22:46.680 loyal force. And that's what's critical because when you win the victory, if you win it under

00:22:51.460 someone else's arms, you never really win. This episode is brought to you by TELUS Online

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00:23:23.100 or identity theft conditions apply but men are so lacking in prudence that they will start on

00:23:29.540 something that looks good at the beginning without noticing that there's a poison hidden in it

00:23:33.420 compare what i said above about diagnosing tuberculosis a prince who can't spot a trouble

00:23:39.280 the moment it is born and very few people can is not truly wise what started the downfall of the

00:23:44.680 roman empire it was they're starting to employ goss as mercenaries from the from that time the 0.96

00:23:50.620 roman empire began to be weakened its virtue was drained off and into the goths hey have you noticed 0.93

00:23:56.520 that our increasingly our american military is made up of foreigners that an increasingly large

00:24:02.900 percentage of our police officers our officials both you know on this side of the pond and the

00:24:09.840 ones that are supposed to go over and fight our behalf are increasingly foreign you know who else 0.53

00:24:15.400 did that the romans when you start handing foreigners arms and telling them to fight on

00:24:22.960 your behalf because you can't be bothered you're setting yourself up to fail yes technically you

00:24:28.080 might have called them roman you might call these people american now but they are basically

00:24:33.060 mercenaries they're basically auxiliaries and that's how you get the downfall machiavelli makes

00:24:39.380 it clear a lot of people will debate how how does the roman empire fall he says very quickly

00:24:43.640 The Romans wouldn't fight anymore.

00:24:45.580 They wanted the Goths to do the fighting for them, 0.89

00:24:47.660 so they started putting them in charge of military.

00:24:50.120 They started putting swords in their hands. 0.95

00:24:54.640 And once you have foreigners, even if you call them Roman or American, 0.99

00:24:58.800 and you start putting arms in their hands, 0.97

00:25:00.440 you're building a force that is not loyal to you.

00:25:03.140 And one day, it will turn on you.

00:25:06.200 I conclude that a principality that doesn't have its own army isn't safe,

00:25:10.000 is entirely dependent on fortune.

00:25:11.960 having left itself with no virtue to defend it in times of trouble wise men have always held that

00:25:17.660 nothing is as uncertain and unstable as the reputation of power that isn't based on one's

00:25:22.300 own strength what i mean by one's own army is an army composed of your own subjects or citizens

00:25:28.400 or dependents any other mercenaries or auxiliaries the right any other are mercenaries or auxiliaries

00:25:34.900 the right way to organize one's army forces can easily worked out from how the four men i have

00:25:41.480 discussed Caesar Borgia, Cairo, Charles VII, David, went about things, and from considering how Philip,

00:25:47.740 the father of Alexander the Great, and many other republics and princes, have armed and organized

00:25:52.820 their states, procedures that I wholeheartedly endorse. Chapter 14, A Prince's Military Duties.

00:26:02.720 A prince then ought to devote any of his serious time or energy to anything but war and how to

00:26:10.160 wage it. This is the only thing that is appropriate for a ruler. And it has so much virtue that it

00:26:16.820 only enables those who are born princes to stay in their thrones, but also often enables ordinary

00:26:22.340 citizens to become princes. On the other hand, it's clear that princes who have given more thought

00:26:27.720 to life's refinement than to arms have lost their states. So this is really critical because we

00:26:33.860 forget this often the aristocracy came to be the rulers came to be because they were warlords first

00:26:40.980 every king begins as a warlord every prince every duke every noble lord they begin as a warrior

00:26:48.200 now we when we say aristocracy because we think of like these decadent european aristocracies

00:26:54.400 that eventually developed into these like foo-foo guys with collars you know sitting around watching

00:26:59.520 plays and and you know singing songs or whatever but that's not where the aristocracy came from

00:27:06.340 and the reason that those people lost their power is they shift the aristocracy from something that

00:27:11.600 is warlike to something that is decadent and he says you have to as a prince as a ruler learn to

00:27:18.640 fight in fact that should be your first thing the art of war is the first art of the prince

00:27:24.660 and everything else comes second before ruling well economics diplomacy the first thing you must

00:27:32.280 know is how to lead an army and how to fight that's what makes you king that's what makes

00:27:37.400 you a prince a very different understanding than we have today but ultimately this is correct

00:27:41.880 violence the capacity for violence is the only source of sovereignty i'll do i'll do the meme

00:27:50.800 i'll do the stewardship troopers you know it's violence is the ultimate authority to which all

00:27:56.600 from which all other authority derives that's it and he says it's so powerful violence being

00:28:02.980 capable of violence is so critical that not only will allow someone who inherited their kingdom

00:28:08.840 to maintain it but will allow common ordinary men to rise up and become rulers if they are

00:28:15.060 capable of violence and of course we've seen this military is a classic form of social mobility

00:28:20.520 in all societies basically warrior societies the most but even in non-warrior societies

00:28:26.000 the capacity for violence has always been a way to elevate oneself in that society

00:28:31.680 francisco suarza a private person with his own armed forces became duke of balan and his sons

00:28:38.240 by delegating or neglecting military matters went from being dukes to being private persons

00:28:43.080 so he says look this guy elevated himself basically into becoming a duke by being good

00:28:48.180 violence and then his son said ah you've already got the dukedom we're gonna go be decadent we're

00:28:52.600 gonna go do something else and they immediately lost it one generation that's all it takes

00:28:56.480 apart from the other evils that came from having no military force there's a concept there is the

00:29:02.440 concept of others and this is one of the disgraceful things that a prince should guard

00:29:06.720 himself again against as i will show later on there's simply no compare comparison between an

00:29:12.620 armed man and an unarmed one and it's not reasonable to expect an armed man to be willing

00:29:17.140 to obey one who is unarmed. Again, why would any unarmed man be able to rule armed people?

00:29:26.760 This goes all the way back to Aristotle. The citizen is he who is armed. And again,

00:29:32.640 in modernity, we try to avoid this truth. We obscure it behind all kinds of fictions about

00:29:38.260 rules-based economic orders and the international law and the separation of the different powers,

00:29:46.580 the civilian rule of the military but ultimately violence is still the key thing that confers

00:29:53.560 sovereignty. Donald Trump would not be president if he could not say hey go kill that guy and some

00:29:59.380 guy does and the minute he loses the ability to do so he is no longer in charge and that's all

00:30:06.840 there is to it nor is it reasonable to think that an armed armed man will be secure when he is

00:30:12.120 surrounded by armed servants and with with their contempt and their suspicions that they won't be

00:30:18.380 able to work well together so a prince who does not understand the art of war can't be respected

00:30:24.720 by his soldiers and can't and can't trust them a prince therefore should never stop thinking about

00:30:30.060 war working at it even harder in times of peace than in wartime he can do this in two ways physically

00:30:36.460 and mentally physically physical preparation for war as well as keeping his men well organized and

00:30:43.460 drilled the prince should spend a lot of time hunting though this can be hard can harden his

00:30:48.660 body to do strenuous exercise and also learn about the terrain how the mountains rise how the valleys

00:30:54.320 open out and how all the plains lie the nature of the rivers and marshes all of this should be

00:30:59.480 studied with great care because it gives the prince knowledge that is useful in in two ways it's a

00:31:05.340 better grasp of the terrain of his own country that will equip him to make a better job of

00:31:10.980 defending it. And secondly, his knowledge and observation of that territory will make it easier

00:31:17.260 for him to understand others. The hills, the valleys, the plains, the rivers, marshes of

00:31:21.760 Tuscany, for example, are quite like those of other provinces. A prince who lacks this skill

00:31:27.240 lacks the main thing a commander needs, namely the ability to find his enemy, to decide where to

00:31:33.480 pitch camp to lead his army on route marches to plan the battles and to besiege towns to his

00:31:38.860 advantage so he says look the prince should just learn about war all the time he should always be

00:31:43.600 thinking about war he should always be getting better at war the whole time even when he does

00:31:49.460 things for pleasure even when he's taking in uh you know some relaxation it should be something

00:31:54.900 like hunting which is going to make him stronger it's going to make him fitter it's going to be

00:31:59.480 make it make him better at using a bow or an arrow or sword but more importantly it's also

00:32:04.600 going to give him a tactical understanding of the land you need to know where things go and you see

00:32:08.900 here yes the fighting is important but the general ship is more important yes you should be a good

00:32:14.320 individual fighter but you should also be good at planning strategizing it emphasizes being able to

00:32:21.000 understand the land being able to understand where you should commit troops all of these things so

00:32:26.280 even when you're doing things like hunting you're building that repertoire that ability to not just

00:32:31.540 do violence but also direct violence when you're in the field one of the things which historians

00:32:37.360 praise the uh philemon prince of uh achaeans was the fact that it's uh in times of peace he thought

00:32:45.660 about nothing but war when he was out in the countryside with friends he would often stop

00:32:50.300 and invite them into into a discussion if the enemy should come up to the hill and we're here

00:32:55.840 with our army which side would be better placed how would we attack him without breaking ranks

00:33:00.460 if he tried to retreat how would we cut them off along the way he would talk about uh talk to them

00:33:06.120 but all the situations that an army might be in listening to their opinions and present and defend

00:33:10.960 and present and defend his own so that these by so that by these continual discussions he was

00:33:17.340 prepared to cope with any emergency that might arise in time of war so he says look this guy is

00:33:21.640 so great that whenever he was out he never wasted any time even when they're just like marching or

00:33:26.300 doing whatever and that you otherwise you wouldn't be able to uh to do anything profitable except

00:33:30.460 just move around he's saying hey look up on that ridge if if an army showed up over there what

00:33:35.540 would we do how would we deploy what would be the west way to overcome them if they use this

00:33:39.580 strategy so he's constantly war game he's constantly running these hypotheticals not

00:33:43.800 just for himself but also with his troops so they're prepared for everything they're always

00:33:47.700 thinking they're always analyzing they're they're using they're training their eye to look for ways

00:33:53.620 that they could be overcome or ambushed this is a constantly thinking learning general he's not just

00:33:59.560 getting his guys from a to b he's utilizing every moment as a way to hone his own abilities and

00:34:04.500 prepare his army mental preparation for war the prince can study historical accounts of the

00:34:09.800 actions of great men to see how they conducted themselves in war he should study the causes of

00:34:14.800 their victories and defeats so as to avoid the defeats and and imitate the victories and above

00:34:20.220 all he should model himself on some great man of the past a man who no doubt modeled his conduct

00:34:26.160 on some still earlier example as it is said alexander the great models himself after achilles

00:34:31.400 and caesar on alexander and scorpio of scorpio on cyrus any reader of xenophon's life of cyrus

00:34:39.560 we'll see how much Scorpio profited from imitating him how he confront uh conformed himself in

00:34:46.020 honesty affability humanity and generosity to what Xenophon reported of Cyrus so this is something

00:34:53.300 that gets echoed over and over again of course Thomas Carlyle is very famous with his great man

00:34:58.620 of history theory for saying the same thing right we are imitating these archetypes and so you're

00:35:04.040 preparing yourself uh you know physically for war but also you should be thinking about great men

00:35:09.340 How did they achieve things?

00:35:10.620 What did they do?

00:35:11.360 And this is why it's really important to read history.

00:35:13.500 I love theory.

00:35:14.600 I love philosophy.

00:35:15.500 Obviously we're doing a lot of that,

00:35:17.100 but you notice that Machiavelli is always grounding himself in historical

00:35:22.620 examples.

00:35:23.460 He's not just throwing out some idea,

00:35:26.080 some,

00:35:26.300 some ideology,

00:35:27.860 some unconnected piece of theory.

00:35:30.160 No,

00:35:30.640 he's saying,

00:35:31.100 and here's how it works.

00:35:32.620 Here's how we saw someone do this.

00:35:34.580 Here's why we are pursuing it this way.

00:35:36.860 Here's why we're deploying it this way.

00:35:39.340 it's never just free floating.

00:35:41.200 It's always tied to history over and over again.

00:35:45.320 Machiavelli's other great work discourses on Livy is just nothing but him

00:35:49.120 commenting on history.

00:35:51.020 So he's always tying it.

00:35:52.600 So yes,

00:35:52.980 we are doing political theory.

00:35:54.480 We are doing abstract theory,

00:35:56.560 but we're always tying it back.

00:35:57.960 And he says,

00:35:58.340 same thing needs to happen for warfare.

00:36:00.380 You need to be studying what actually happened.

00:36:02.680 What did successful great men do?

00:36:04.800 And you need to be mimicking that arise.

00:36:08.120 prince will follow some such rules as these he won't idle away times of peace rather he will

00:36:14.940 use them as an opportunity to increase his resources to manage times of adversity so that

00:36:20.500 his fortune if his fortune changes it will find him ready to fight back all right chapter 15

00:36:28.380 things for which men especially princes are praised or blamed the next topic is how a prince

00:36:35.860 should conduct himself towards his subjects and his friends many others have written about this

00:36:40.820 so i suppose it will remain rash of me to go against to go into it again especially given the

00:36:46.660 differences between what i shall say and what others have said but i am not apologetic about

00:36:51.900 this my aim is to write things that will be useful to the reader who understands them so i will find

00:36:56.860 it more appropriate to pursue the real truth of the matter than to repeat what other people have

00:37:00.960 imagined about it very interestingly in other translations this it looks like his direct attack

00:37:07.300 on guys like plato right who say all right let's go imagine the perfect city what would it be like

00:37:13.620 and machiavelli is striking directly at the ancients here in many ways he's saying enough

00:37:19.440 of that enough of that imagining you know the platonic or the the ciceroan uh republic no

00:37:25.700 enough of enough of these theoretical understandings these abstract understandings well i wish this is

00:37:31.920 how the world would be no this is how it is and i'm going to talk to you about how it is not the

00:37:36.940 kind of world we want to create and this is why machiavelli is often called the first modern

00:37:41.880 thinker the first modern philosopher because he discards all this past uh you know idealistic

00:37:49.160 understanding and says no this is how things get done so i'm going to discard all the abstract i'm

00:37:54.740 going to discard all the theoretical and i'm going to tell you exactly what works it's not about the

00:38:00.020 way we want things to be it's what the way things are this is why he develops this reputation as a

00:38:04.560 political realism right this is why machiavellian political thinking is considered realist because

00:38:10.300 it's discarding the ideals it's discarding in many ways this abstract understanding and saying

00:38:16.220 down to brass tacks how do we win how do we hold power uh let's see many writers have dreamed up

00:38:24.080 republics and principalities such as never have been seen or known in the real world obvious

00:38:28.880 illusion there right and attending to them is dangerous because the gap between how men live

00:38:34.140 and how they ought to live is so wide that any prince that thinks in terms not on how people do

00:38:40.960 behave but how they ought to behave are all will be destroyed or will destroy his power rather than

00:38:47.400 maintaining it a man who tries to act virtuously will soon come to grief at the hands of the

00:38:52.820 unscrupulous people around him. Thus, a prince who wants to keep his power must learn how to act

00:38:57.620 immorally, using or not using the skill according to necessity. So again, this is where Machiavelli

00:39:06.260 gets his reputation as a teacher of evil. Machiavelli does not mince words. He says,

00:39:12.040 don't tell me about how men should behave. Don't tell me about how these virtuous men,

00:39:17.620 these moral men, these pious religious men should behave. This is how they do behave.

00:39:22.820 And if you are a ruler, you must deal with the reality of how people really behave and how they really act.

00:39:29.580 And if you are completely committed to virtuous behavior, abstract ideas of virtuous behavior, you will lose.

00:39:36.360 You will be destroyed.

00:39:37.320 Your power will be squandered because you are not willing to do the ugly stuff it takes to win and to stay in power.

00:39:44.580 Again, you can agree with that.

00:39:45.980 You can disagree with that.

00:39:47.000 You can find that immoral.

00:39:48.060 You can find it realistic.

00:39:49.620 But Machiavelli is unafraid to say it.

00:39:52.620 And that's why he has a reputation he has.

00:39:55.000 This is why people call it Machiavellian politics or Machiavellian thinking.

00:39:59.640 It's the idea that, look, this is what it takes to win.

00:40:03.440 Enough with the illusions, enough with the virtue, enough with the theoretical brass

00:40:08.220 tacks.

00:40:08.800 How do we get this done?

00:40:11.000 Setting aside fantasies about princes, therefore, and attending to reality.

00:40:15.100 I say when men are being discussed, and especially princes because they are more prominent, is

00:40:20.060 largely in terms of qualities that they have bring uh brave blame or praise for example one is said

00:40:27.040 to be free spending another miserly one is described to be generous another is grasping

00:40:31.460 one is merciful the other is cruel one is keeping his word the other is breaking it one is bold

00:40:37.340 the other as effeminate and cowardly one is friendly the other is arrogant one is chaste

00:40:42.500 the other is promiscuous one is straightforward the other is devious one is firm the other as

00:40:47.620 variable one is grave another as frivolous one is religious another is unbelieving and so on

00:40:53.540 we'll all agree that would be fine thing for a prince to have all the good qualities on the list

00:40:58.560 but the conditions of human life make it impossible to have and exercise all of these qualities so

00:41:03.600 prince must say prince has to be wary in avoiding the vices that would cost him his state he should

00:41:10.640 also avoid as far as he can the vices that would not cost him his state but he can't fully uh but

00:41:18.000 he can't fully succeed in this so he shouldn't worry too much about giving himself over to them

00:41:23.180 and he needn't be anxious about getting a bad reputation for vices without which it would be

00:41:28.700 hard for him to save his state all things considered there's always something that looks

00:41:33.940 like virtue but could bring him to ruin if adopted and something that looks like vice

00:41:38.740 would make him safe and prosperous so again he's real clear here you don't have to agree you could

00:41:44.760 find this monstrous and many people did very scandalous right but he says look you should

00:41:50.280 avoid vice but mainly if it loses you the kingdom you know if you're out there drinking and and

00:41:57.240 spending all the money and and stealing things from people as he's warned about in previous

00:42:01.200 chapters that's going to lose you your kingdom and that's why you shouldn't do it not just because

00:42:05.840 it's virtuous but because you need to avoid those things because you'll lose power and if you have

00:42:11.160 vices that ultimately help you keep what you have if you're considered cruel if you're considered

00:42:17.780 immoral in certain areas but you still ultimately are allowed to keep power well then don't worry

00:42:22.960 about those too much because like you need to do that to stay in power if you chase after things

00:42:28.780 that are virtuous but it loses you power then they got you nothing so and if you steer away

00:42:35.760 from vices that ultimately would allow you to keep power well that was foolish again very

00:42:41.360 scandalous very controversial at the time still controversial to this day but Machiavelli states

00:42:46.800 it plainly chapter 16 the free spender and the tightwad that's obviously a very modern title

00:42:56.960 there not the original uh uh uh translation of that uh starting with item one in this list uh

00:43:05.340 page 33 let's see commentary some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to

00:43:14.260 melt in your mouth sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light rich creamy

00:43:19.920 chocolatey arrow truffle feel the arrow bubbles melt it's mind bubbling

00:43:27.660 If you spend freely in entirely virtuous ways so that nobody knows about it, it won't do you any

00:43:33.460 good. Indeed, you'll be criticized as a tightwad. So anyone who wants to have a reputation as a

00:43:39.760 free spender will devote all of his wealth to this end, and will eventually have to burden

00:43:46.380 his subjects with taxes that do everything he can to get money. This will make his subjects

00:43:52.660 hate him and in his poverty he won't have anyone's respect thus by spreading his money around he has

00:43:58.360 offended many and rewarded few he is uh now very vulnerable and his first touch of danger will go

00:44:05.100 down he will be see uh if he sees this and tries to change of course he will get a reputation for

00:44:11.500 being a miser so he says be careful obviously everyone wants to be seen as being generous

00:44:16.940 but if you go out and you start being generous start giving away money to people helping people

00:44:22.180 out. That'll look nice. People will like that. But ultimately, you can't do that forever. You're

00:44:27.120 going to run out of money. And if you start to do that stuff and you run out of money, you got two

00:44:32.060 choices. You can stop doing it, in which case you'll look like a tightwad. You'll look cheap

00:44:37.080 and no one will like you. You look miserly and people say, oh, you used to be generous,

00:44:41.580 but now you're being a miser and they'll resent you for it. Or you can go out and tax people and

00:44:46.780 get a bunch of the money to keep being generous. But if you do that, people will resent you for

00:44:50.880 continuing to take money from some and giving it to others so he says don't ever start with that

00:44:56.240 reputation because if you do it's going to cost you something it sounds good at the beginning but

00:45:01.080 it's better to just be cheap and be thought of as cheap and have people you know mildly hate you as

00:45:06.480 being cheap than it is to start as generous become cheap and then people will really despise you

00:45:13.320 because they became used to that remember giving people something up front as Machiavelli says

00:45:17.320 multiple times throughout the prince giving people up something up front may make them feel good in

00:45:21.900 the moment but they will always come to feel entitled to it as where if you deny it to them

00:45:27.560 up front yes they might not like that about you but they never build the expectation for you to

00:45:32.520 do that so there's really ultimately no reason as a ruler to be generous because if you start

00:45:37.960 generous you're going to ultimately harm your reputation because you're going to need to go

00:45:41.720 back on that or tax the bejesus of people in order to keep it going so why not just begin with the

00:45:48.500 reputation of being miserly again people might not like it but it's better than having them turn on

00:45:52.960 you that's the key because a prince can't publicly exercise a virtue of free spending without paying

00:45:58.600 a high price for it if he's wise he won't be afraid of being thought to be a miser because

00:46:03.700 no one will think about him when he sees when he sees that he's reigned in by uh in his spending

00:46:10.160 he leaves himself with the resources he needs to defend himself against all the tax and to tackle

00:46:15.900 various projects without burdening his people his management of wealth therefore works well

00:46:21.700 with the countless people from whom he doesn't take anything and uh and badly for the small group

00:46:27.460 of people to whom he doesn't give anything and to and to whom he would have given gifts if he had

00:46:33.120 allowed the free if he had followed the free spending route everything great that has been

00:46:37.740 done in our time was the work of someone who was regarded as a miser. Other than people's attempt

00:46:43.100 at great things have all failed. Pope Julius II was helped towards the papacy by his reputation

00:46:49.940 as a free spender, but after becoming pope, he dropped that in order to be capable of making war.

00:46:55.660 The present king of France has conducted many wars without imposing any extra taxes,

00:47:02.520 burdens on his subjects, because his additional wartime expenses were been covered by his cost

00:47:07.460 cutting measures the present king of spain couldn't wouldn't have taken undertaken let alone

00:47:13.100 succeeded in so many campaigns if he had a reputation for splashing his money around

00:47:18.340 miserliness is one of those vices that enables the prince to govern so again he says look here

00:47:24.360 are all these historical examples of people who would not have done what they did if they had

00:47:28.820 been too lavish right he gives the example of the pope oh he got into power by being very lavish but

00:47:34.680 then he's despised because ultimately he pulls that back so you can go fight war as where here's

00:47:38.780 all these guys yes they started with this vice of being a miser but ultimately they were able to do

00:47:45.680 more because they never had to worry about betraying their people and you know taking back something

00:47:50.560 that had gotten used to just start with that reputation that's better again always tying

00:47:55.320 things to historical examples and now you see he's going to even answer the possible counter

00:48:00.300 example because he knows there are other historical examples he needs to address i may be ejected

00:48:06.440 caesar splashes wealth around and route to the top of position in rome and many others have reached

00:48:10.740 the highest position by spinning freely and being known to do so i reply either you're either you

00:48:16.420 are a prince already or you're on your way to becoming one if you have arrived this open

00:48:20.920 handness with wealth is dangerous as i have shown but if you were still on your way uh you need to

00:48:26.120 be regarded as a, as free with your wealth. Caesar may, uh, Caesar was one of those who wanted to

00:48:32.660 become the Prince of Rome, but if he has survived after coming to the top, it would, if he hadn't

00:48:37.300 cut back on his expenses, he would have, uh, uh, destroyed the empire. I put a possibly renewed

00:48:44.960 objected objection. Many princes have done great things with armies that have been regarded as free

00:48:51.120 with their wealth in answer to you i distinguish two cases a prince is lavish with his wealth

00:48:56.980 that is his own and his subjects uh a prince who is lavish with the wealth of others uh sorry let

00:49:04.440 me reread that because it was a weird order many princes have done great things with armies that

00:49:08.200 have been regarded as free with their free with their wealth in answering you i distinguish two

00:49:13.200 cases one a prince that is lavish with the wealth of his own of his own and with his subjects or

00:49:19.420 two a prince who is lavish with the wealth of others if you're in the first category he ought

00:49:24.080 to be sparing if number two he ought to take every opportunity to spend freely as for the prince who

00:49:29.360 leads his army in a campaign supported by pillage plunder and extortion he has his own disposable

00:49:35.460 wealth that belongs to others and he had better spread it around or his soldiers will deserve

00:49:40.320 open-handedness with wealth eats itself up faster than anything the more you do it the less you have

00:49:46.100 to do it with so you end up poor and despised or else because of the means you took to avoid

00:49:51.600 poverty rapacious and hated as as a prince should above all protect himself from being despised and

00:49:58.240 hated and open handedness with wealth leads you to both so it's wiser to have a reputation for

00:50:04.720 miserliness which brings criticism without hatred than to uh than to be led by the pursuit of a

00:50:11.120 reputation for open handedness to get a reputation that brings criticism and hatred all right so

00:50:16.080 let's go back and talk about his examples there so first he answers the uh pushback with caesar

00:50:21.020 he said okay well julius caesar he went out and he was very wealthy uh if you don't know caesar's

00:50:26.060 uh story he went out and got a bunch of loans like basically put himself in like this insane

00:50:30.340 amount of debt so he could give out a bunch of money and that made him very popular he says okay

00:50:35.080 well a lot of people are are gonna say oh look he's caesar he he did that this way he says no

00:50:40.040 you need to understand the difference okay if a guy is already in power then he doesn't need to

00:50:45.080 do this so that so you know but when we're looking at caesar that's a guy who's rising

00:50:49.960 and he does need to look generous but eventually when he comes to power he has to stop

00:50:56.380 and so yes you do have to engage in this you'd have to build that reputation but just realize

00:51:00.640 you have to eventually cut off the spigot and we'll never find out with caesar because ultimately

00:51:05.660 caesar died as soon as caesar came to power he was basically assassinated not long after so he

00:51:10.980 never had to do the part where he had to cut off all that generosity and in fact julius caesar died

00:51:17.500 in his will he gave even more money to the people which is why you know mark anthony does the whole

00:51:23.020 speech if you've seen julius caesar the play william shakespeare you know that's one of the

00:51:27.280 things that endears him to the people uh is that ultimately he left even more wealth for them and

00:51:32.420 so uh but but if he had taken power and lived he could have never done any of that he had to he

00:51:36.880 would have had to dial it back and that would have made him unpopular in some areas so maybe

00:51:40.840 he has to do that because as a rising star he has to look generous but eventually he's gonna have to

00:51:45.280 make that turn and better early than late because if he keeps trying to tax the people and get money

00:51:50.520 out of them it's not gonna work then he also says okay look there is these other scenarios where

00:51:55.140 princes are generous it works out for them but he says here's why they're able to do that if it's

00:51:59.620 if their own money or the money of their own subjects if it's their taxes don't do it don't

00:52:04.520 be generous with those because that will run out and the people will despise you however if you're

00:52:09.620 using someone else's money to be generous go for it that's great that there's no problem there so

00:52:14.420 he says the problem isn't generosity itself he's not saying i'm just always a cheap guy he's being

00:52:19.940 very practical about it you can give people a bunch of money as long as it's not your money

00:52:23.560 because then you don't have to worry about like you know going and tax him in fact he says if

00:52:28.100 you're someone who's conquering and you're like pillaging people and getting all this money you

00:52:31.840 better spread it around to your troops or they're going to desert you or turn on you so he says even

00:52:36.660 in some scenarios you do need to be generous but just always be generous with someone else's money 0.98

00:52:40.800 if you're and and that's what happened with a lot of roman uh rulers they they go out and they 0.94

00:52:45.520 conquer they come back and they distribute their winnings to the people and that makes them happy 0.72

00:52:51.500 right that so so they use someone else's money money that they stole that they they won through

00:52:55.480 battle and that allows them to be generous and that way you don't have to worry because you

00:52:59.460 didn't get it by you know taking it from your own subjects or taking out of your own pocket

00:53:03.500 and if it you know it doesn't run out the same way because people like oh we got that because

00:53:08.880 you know he he conquered this other area not because like we're just always going to get that

00:53:13.380 so they tie the conquest in fact they might even support more of your wars and more of the things

00:53:17.960 that you want to do because they're going to benefit at the end they can see the direct benefit

00:53:21.220 whenever this guy goes out and conquers something we get cool stuff so let him go out and conquer

00:53:26.480 something new and then we're going to benefit from that so now your military action is tied

00:53:31.760 directly to the benefit of the people instead of your generosity being tied to your ability to tax

00:53:37.840 people and take things away from them all right guys uh we'll go ahead and stop there we're a

00:53:44.680 decent away through we're in the back half of the prince for sure again you should read this all

00:53:50.140 yourself you can get a a audiobook from the library uh it's like a four-hour listen or you

00:53:56.060 can buy a copy for like three dollars there's a fat you know just millions of copies of the

00:54:01.380 prints probably around the world and print in any given time you can find you know used one at a

00:54:05.780 bookstore for like nothing and you can read it in a sitting if you really want to uh so make sure

00:54:11.120 that i'm glad you're reading along with me but i really encourage you to read the great works

00:54:14.960 yourself especially ones that are so short and so easy to read like this one again lots of

00:54:20.180 complicated things to understand in it you should reread it multiple times the prince is a great

00:54:24.040 text to also practice your rereading because you can go back you can pull more out you can

00:54:29.620 understand each time yeah i read i read the prints at least once a year often more uh you know just

00:54:34.580 so i can constantly keep it in my mind constantly think about the lessons constantly keep it fresh

00:54:39.040 and trying to pull new insights out of it it's a great practice and a habit to get into all right

00:54:44.260 let's going to let's go to looks like we have a question from the audience perspicacious heretic

00:54:50.080 says i struggle with this view of virtue at times but i suppose there is a lot of virtue and even a

00:54:56.120 form of empathy in stable in a stable kingdom yeah i mean obviously this is something that people

00:55:02.840 struggle with right that's that's why machiavelli remains controversial even to this day right so

00:55:08.860 you should struggle this is difficult okay machiavelli was a teacher of evil like we can't

00:55:16.860 deny that. But the question is, why was ruling seen as a burden for most of history? Most people

00:55:25.500 actually don't want to rule. Most people don't want to be in these positions. And the reason is

00:55:31.100 it's really hard, actually. We all think, oh yeah, I want to be the boss. I wanted to be the boss.

00:55:36.360 But actually doing this stuff, being in this position, making these decisions is often very

00:55:42.180 unpleasant. We think of the wisdom, the power, the money, everything that could come with being

00:55:47.740 a ruler, the prestige, but we don't think about the downsides. And there's a reason that most

00:55:53.320 people are willing to basically farm out their sovereignty to someone else because they don't

00:55:58.620 want to do the hard stuff. In most classical philosophy, they recognize that difficult

00:56:04.040 decisions were made by the rulers. If you read Aristotle, it's not like he entirely dodges many

00:56:09.680 of these questions. In fact, Aristotle regularly says you're going to have to do some rough stuff

00:56:13.760 as the ruler. So he's not the only person who has, Machiavelli is not the only person to ever

00:56:19.520 address this, but he's just the most bold about it. He's the most frank about it. He's the most

00:56:24.720 upfront about it. He says it all in his own name. He doesn't hide it behind any kind of parables,

00:56:29.440 any kind of other characters. He's not speaking in the voice of Socrates. He's not putting up

00:56:35.660 some kind of illusion. He just throws it out there. That's why Machiavelli is often very easy

00:56:42.020 to read compared to other political thinkers or philosophies. There's not a lot of illusion here.

00:56:46.700 Now, there is some esoteric stuff in here. If you read Leo Strauss, there's a whole half a book of

00:56:53.380 footnotes trying to point you to how esoteric all of Machiavelli is. I'll let you decide if you buy

00:57:00.260 into all of those theories. But no doubt, there's a lot of complexity baked in here. So I'm not

00:57:03.760 saying that Machiavelli is simple but I am just saying that a lot of his core truths a lot of the

00:57:10.020 things that people need to understand are laid bare and that's something that a lot of people

00:57:14.320 find refreshing because they don't have to go through and try to suss out from a conversation

00:57:18.180 between you know mythical people discussing a some kind of abstract republic and try to pull

00:57:24.740 no it's just right there right and so that's what shocks people so yes this is difficult it's

00:57:31.380 difficult to think about it's difficult to discuss but you also have to ask yourself is it right is

00:57:36.560 it true and there's a reason a lot of people don't want to be in these positions because they don't

00:57:41.580 want to deal with that they don't want to make those decisions they don't want to have to face

00:57:46.520 those ugly truths and be held accountable feel the weight of them and that's okay actually that's

00:57:53.040 kind of why i don't like democracy because democracy makes you feel like everyone is

00:57:57.780 bought into the decision did you vote republican did you vote democrat people treat treat this as

00:58:03.020 some kind of flag planted in your your deep moral senses but actually in most of history the ruling

00:58:10.600 was something that was done by someone else and you didn't feel responsible if your ruler did

00:58:15.820 something horrific it wasn't your fault you didn't do it there's no reason for you to be held

00:58:21.440 accountable you're not morally attached to it so most of the time in human history the ruling class

00:58:26.060 took that moral burden off the average person. But today our political system specifically places it

00:58:31.720 on the average person and instead removes it from the ruling class. It's not Joe Biden's fault. It's

00:58:38.880 not Donald Trump's fault. It's the voters fault. It's your neighbor's fault. It's not the rich fat

00:58:43.880 cats. It's not the banks. It's not the generals. No, it's, it's the guy next to you who makes

00:58:49.860 fifty thousand dollars a year you know managing a retail store that he did it because he voted the

00:58:56.100 wrong way that that's the way we view our political system now so is it better you know not really i

00:59:03.860 don't think so but machiavelli again lays out these costs for us the prince is a book for rulers to

00:59:10.640 understand what's going to work and what the weight of those decisions will mean it's not for the

00:59:15.940 average person all right guys we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up i want to thank everybody for

00:59:21.460 coming by i really enjoy doing this series i really appreciate that you guys you know show up

00:59:27.560 and give me the time to not always just follow the news and actually do things that are going to be

00:59:32.700 evergreen that are you know we're still tying this back to events that are happening right now we're

00:59:37.520 still looking how we can apply this in the modern day but ultimately i appreciate that we don't have

00:59:43.900 to do just grinding the news i i know people do that and i know it's popular by all means there

00:59:48.680 are people better than me and we we of course absolutely touch on current events but it's nice

00:59:53.740 to be able to do these kind of long form uh exegesis of like the text and understand what's

01:00:00.800 going on here uh because we're going to be able to apply that over and over again and this is

01:00:05.360 actually like a very popular uh series with the core audience it's never going to drive up the

01:00:10.000 biggest numbers on youtube but i get more people asking me about when's the next episode of the

01:00:14.780 machiavelli series coming out than i get for anything else so it's really nice that you know

01:00:18.900 i think i think the the core core of the audience really enjoys this the most uh they're the ones

01:00:24.200 who are constantly asking about it they're the ones telling me hey we need more of this so i do

01:00:27.780 appreciate that i really appreciate that from you guys if it's your first time on this channel

01:00:31.560 remember you need to click subscribe bell notifications all that stuff so you know when

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01:00:52.020 the algorithm magic thank you everybody for watching and as always i'll talk to you next time

The Auron MacIntyre Show - April 15, 2026

Machiavelli： How Virtue Can Ruin a Prince ｜ 4⧸15⧸26

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