The Auron MacIntyre Show - Machiavelli on the Danger of Mercenaries ｜ 3⧸11⧸26

00:00:00.000 How is TD making banking more human?

00:00:02.880 Easy.

00:00:03.640 With less bank talk and more real talk.

00:00:06.560 Less, your call is important to us.

00:00:08.860 And more, how can we help?

00:00:11.060 Less confusion.

00:00:12.480 And more clarity.

00:00:14.300 It's things like being able to buy partial shares with TD Direct Investing.

00:00:18.400 And tracking your spending and saving with TD MySpend.

00:00:21.940 It's getting more of what you want and less of what you don't.

00:00:25.500 That's how TD's making banking more human.

00:00:28.120 Are we human?

00:00:30.000 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I am Oren McIntyre. Before we

00:00:36.660 get started today, I just wanted to remind you that one of the ways we keep the lights on around

00:00:40.780 here is of course subscriptions to Blaze TV. So if you enjoy supporting this show and you want to

00:00:46.000 get all the great behind the scenes content from your favorite Blaze TV hosts, you need to head

00:00:50.300 to blazetv.com slash Oren and use the promo code Oren to get $20 off your subscription today. That's

00:00:56.520 blazetv.com slash Oren, $20 off your subscription today. All right, guys, we are continuing our

00:01:05.060 series on Nico Machiavelli's The Prince. We are now in Chapter 9, and we're going to be getting

00:01:12.280 into some of the most important parts of The Prince today, especially Machiavelli's focus

00:01:18.400 on the need to control the means of violence. Machiavelli was very big on winning with your

00:01:25.200 own swords, winning with your own power, under your own strength, how critical that is to actually

00:01:31.480 controlling the nation, actually holding sovereignty. Anyone who's dependent on someone

00:01:36.660 else's weapons, someone else's might, cannot by definition be truly sovereign. We're going to dive

00:01:43.840 into all that. Before we do, let's hear about Frontier Magazine. Hey guys, we all have to read

00:01:50.400 things digitally these days but i'm old school whenever i can i want to feel the weight of the

00:01:55.400 page in my hand so when i look at frontier magazine which is always beautifully shot and

00:02:00.160 beautifully laid out and has really interesting articles that's what i'm looking for i've written

00:02:04.680 for frontier many of my guests have written for frontier from this show and if you want to get

00:02:10.140 access to frontier magazine you need to subscribe to blaze unlimited when you do you're not just

00:02:15.340 going to get issue five you're also going to get all the other premium perks and you're going to

00:02:20.080 get back issues one through four digitally so you're immediately caught up if you want to do

00:02:24.460 that you need to head to blazeunlimited.com slash oran and use the promo code frontier 40 to get

00:02:30.640 40 off your subscription that's blazeunlimited.com slash oran frontier 40 for that discount

00:02:37.420 all right so when we left off our last chapter was about rulers using wickedness is the wicked

00:02:44.960 ruler someone who ultimately is benefiting? Are they doing something smart? Is there a correct way

00:02:50.080 to go about it? He also talked about other ways that people come to power. So we're going to be

00:02:55.280 moving to chapter nine, where he talks about the civil principality. We've got a lot to go through

00:03:01.000 today. So let's just jump into the text. At the start of chapter eight, I spoke of two ways of

00:03:06.820 becoming a prince that aren't entirely matters of fortune or virtue. And now I come to the second

00:03:12.380 of them a citizen becomes the prince of his country not by wickedness or any intolerable

00:03:17.560 violence but by the favor of his fellow citizens so basically we have kind of an elected king

00:03:23.160 and you know because he's still talking about monarchies he will talk about republics in his

00:03:28.460 other book uh the discourses on livy which i will probably go through some selections on as i expand

00:03:34.420 this series uh but in the prince he is speaking very directly to kings to monarchs to princes

00:03:40.140 and so he says okay you may come to power as a king through wickedness or violence another way

00:03:47.040 you could come to power is through being kind of elected this is actually a long tradition

00:03:53.140 we even see this is somewhat in reflectively american tradition original originally alexander

00:03:59.620 hamilton suggested that the presidency would be for life essentially an elected monarch so you

00:04:05.740 would have to elect a new king every time one died but once a a president was elected he would

00:04:13.680 stay president for the rest of his life effectively an elected executive that is monarchical in kind

00:04:19.740 of the sense that we now understand it so Machiavelli is saying you could come to power

00:04:24.600 through the favor of your fellow citizens we can call this the civil principality and then they

00:04:29.900 give you four possible translations so we'll just uh read through one uh nor is uh genius or fortune

00:04:36.840 altogether necessary to attain it uh now this kind of principality this way of becoming a prince is

00:04:43.660 obtained through the support of the common people or with the support of the nobles every city state

00:04:49.540 has common people who don't want to be ruled or ordered around by the nobles and nobles who do not

00:04:55.800 want to who do want to rule and order around the common people and the conflict between these two

00:05:02.580 opposite political drives results in each city in one of these three things a civil principality

00:05:10.080 freedom or ungoverned chaos whether a civil principality is created by the people or the

00:05:17.100 nobles depends on which group has the opportunity when the nobles see that they can't resist popular

00:05:22.820 pressure they select one of their number uh praise him to the skies and make him a prince

00:05:29.720 hoping to be able under his shadow to get what they want so he says okay look you're going to

00:05:34.720 have this scenario where either you're going to have a ruler you're going to have a kind of a

00:05:41.580 republican style government or you're just going to have ungoverned chaos and you are only going

00:05:47.120 to have kind of two people that ultimately make and elevate a king a king could elevate himself

00:05:52.780 through violence or some other method of gaining control uh but you also have the opportunity for

00:05:59.740 the nobles to elevate the king you know they select a king of their uh their choosing or

00:06:06.380 the people could select a king and if the people select the king what they're looking for is that

00:06:11.100 ultimately he's gonna side with them that's what they're hoping for so they're gonna look for

00:06:16.260 someone who is promising things to the populace they're going to praise him to the skies they're

00:06:21.020 going to turn him to the prince but ultimately what they really want is a ruler that is going to

00:06:25.820 be interested in their favor in their advantage when the people find that they can't resist the

00:06:32.720 nobles they select one of their number praise him to the skies and make him prince hoping that his

00:06:38.340 authority will be a defense for them someone who becomes prince with the help of the nobles will

00:06:43.920 find it hard to maintain his position because he'll be surrounded by men who regard themselves 1.00

00:06:49.380 as equals which will inhibit him in giving orders and managing affairs so if the nobles are the

00:06:56.620 reason you become king then it's going to be difficult for you to do a lot because they're

00:07:02.120 going to have expectations of you they're going to have uh things that they they see you as one

00:07:07.360 of the equals that you know one of the other nobles that just got elevated into this position

00:07:11.240 not as some godly figure from on high not some all-powerful position they could have been king

00:07:16.620 if they had simply been named the noble who would be elevated and this is important because

00:07:21.440 when we think of limited government right one of the things we think of is that a king is just out

00:07:26.940 of control that's kind of the way we've had monarchy explained to us that kings just have

00:07:30.940 all this power they do whatever they want but that's not true in fact if the king especially

00:07:36.420 has been elevated by nobles he's actually quite constrained by other men in similar positions

00:07:42.800 the king is just one of many equals who has to ultimately gain the support and that's why kings

00:07:49.140 were so uh reliant especially in uh the you know the middle ages on their barons their you know

00:07:55.000 their dukes their other nobles that they had to draw upon for support troops money all these

00:08:00.860 kinds of things you couldn't just go around dictating whatever you want many kings wanted

00:08:05.460 to do that. And later on, we saw the push towards royal absolutism. This is a very interesting

00:08:10.900 transition. If you've read Bertrand de Juvenal's book on power, he talks about this process, how

00:08:17.880 the understanding of the king as this tyrant who has no restrictions is a radical misunderstanding.

00:08:25.320 And that, in fact, in many cases, it is the creation of democracy that has freed up state

00:08:31.880 power. Those who have read Hans Hermann Hopp will also recognize this from Democracy to God

00:08:36.880 That Failed. That's because he stole it from Bertrand Juvenal. But either way, both men are

00:08:40.960 right that when you erode away that aristocracy, we often think of that as some kind of, you know,

00:08:49.460 ultimately like an elite that doesn't care about us. And that can be true. And that's going to try

00:08:53.320 to take power to itself, which is often the case. But we don't realize that that aristocracy did

00:08:57.860 serve as a certain type of barrier to the centralization of power by having other nobles

00:09:03.580 other people who can control the area can make demands on the king you actually limit his overall

00:09:10.580 power and that's what Machiavelli is saying here if you have these nobles who elevated you to power

00:09:15.620 as a king you're going to have to answer to them your power will be less because you're constantly

00:09:20.620 dealing with the nobles they're going to constrain you they're going to make demands on you it is

00:09:25.280 easier for a prince who gets there with the help of popular favor he'll be able to exercise his

00:09:30.320 principality single-handedly with few if any people unwilling to obey him so Machiavelli says

00:09:38.240 it's better for you as a tyrant that or just a king in general to be elevated by the people

00:09:45.200 because then there is no barrier between you and what you want to do the people are not strong

00:09:52.160 enough to push back against you all they can do is elevate you once you're elevated they don't

00:09:56.080 have the money they don't have the influence they don't have you know their own little private armies

00:10:00.480 like many nobles do they don't have the ability to punish you if you decide and go and do what you

00:10:05.660 want so it's better to come to power under the uh the people than it is under the nobles again

00:10:12.080 something you'll see echoed in something like Bertrand de Juvenal or in uh in Hop because they

00:10:18.120 also point out that it is this relationship between the tyrant and the people right the

00:10:22.700 people put the tyrant in place often because they think he's going to save them from the nobles this

00:10:28.380 is the relationship again a lot of people don't realize this but if you look at many societies

00:10:35.100 that had monarchies it was the peasantry that supported the king the most you want to look at

00:10:40.720 the french revolution guess who wanted to keep the monarchy it was the peasants it was the people out 1.00

00:10:46.240 Nevada that ultimately wanted the monarchy to stay in place. You look at the Russian 1.00

00:10:51.900 revolution, it's the peasants that want to keep the czar. It's kind of these other groups,

00:10:59.020 the bourgeois, those in urban areas, they're the ones that want to overthrow the king. But

00:11:06.020 the people see him as their champion against these other forces. So often by investing

00:11:11.900 you know this power in the king the people are hoping that he will come against the nobles that

00:11:18.500 they often see as oppressing them but Machiavelli points out that does make the king more powerful

00:11:23.740 because if he's coming to power under the people instead of under the aristocracy he has a far

00:11:29.900 freer hand in everything he can do which is of course good for the king and in some cases might

00:11:34.040 be good for the people but it does noticeably remove restraints from government furthermore

00:11:40.300 a prince can't satisfy the nobles without acting wrongly and harming others because what the nobles

00:11:46.420 want is to oppress the people whereas he can satisfy the people without harming anyone because

00:11:52.160 their desires are more honorable than those of the nobles all the people want is to not be oppressed

00:11:57.180 also a prince can't secure himself against a hostile people because there are too many of them

00:12:02.420 whereas he can secure himself against the nobles because there aren't that many of them i should

00:12:07.860 add a few words explaining the context of secure himself against i.e. what the threats are from the

00:12:14.320 two directions the worst that a prince can expect if the people turn hostile is that he will they

00:12:21.280 will abandon him but if the nobles turn hostile he has to fear not only that they will abandon him

00:12:27.340 but also that they will attack him the nobles are more likely to attack than the people are because

00:12:33.380 they look ahead further and are more intelligent than uh than the people and more and more

00:12:41.020 intelligent than the people do and will always act early so as to protect themselves from danger

00:12:46.660 further down the line and so as to obtain favors uh from whoever they expect to win in one respect

00:12:55.040 though the people are more of a threat than the nobles namely the prince has to live always with 0.53

00:13:00.300 the same people, but he doesn't have to always have the same nobles because he can make and

00:13:05.340 unmake nobles every day, giving or taking away honors at will. So it says, look, there are ups

00:13:11.180 and downs in each one of these. Like ultimately you want to side with the people if you can,

00:13:16.200 because it's going to give you more power. You're not going to have to do what the nobles say.

00:13:20.200 It's easier to, uh, it's easier to take power with the people because the nobles are going to

00:13:25.620 want advantages out of the people. They're going to want you to oppress the people to give them

00:13:29.800 benefits for oppressing the people that's all stuff they're going to want to do and it's going

00:13:34.440 to create hostility and you have to be worried because you're always around the people and

00:13:38.460 there's a lot more of them right like it's very difficult to replace the people uh but you you

00:13:44.860 can much more easily replace the nobles if you would like now this is a little different in

00:13:50.440 today's world because our nobles have figured out how to replace the people actually our nobles have

00:13:55.720 decided they will just use the great replacement. They will use demographic transfers from different

00:14:01.620 countries. You could keep the same nobility, but you can swap out the people. This is something

00:14:06.420 Christopher Lash talked about in his book, Revolt of the Elites. So we're seeing this dynamic shift

00:14:11.120 somewhat. At the time, Machiavelli probably couldn't envision a world in which your common

00:14:17.600 ruler brings in large amounts of people from some far off nation and uses them repeatedly to

00:14:24.200 displace this or at least he probably didn't think it was going to become super common practice but

00:14:28.760 of course it has in our world and that's why things have changed dramatically i'll try to set

00:14:35.180 all this out more clearly the first question that you as a prince ought to ask about the noble is

00:14:40.840 does he behave in a way that ties his success in everything to yours if he does and isn't greedy

00:14:48.160 he should be honored and loved. As those who don't tie their success to yours, there are two

00:14:54.360 cases to consider. One, the reason why a given noble doesn't link to his success with yours

00:15:02.040 may be that he is feeble and a coward. This is a man you should make use of, especially if he is 0.93

00:15:07.520 good advice to offer. In times of prosperity, he will bring you honor, and when things go badly,

00:15:14.360 you don't have to fear anything from him a noble that doesn't commit himself to you because he

00:15:18.880 was ambitious plans are plans of his own shoes that he is giving more sorry lost a noble that

00:15:27.260 doesn't commit himself to you because he has ambitious plans of his own shows that he is

00:15:33.300 giving more thought to himself than to you and a prince ought to keep a watchful eye on this man

00:15:38.880 fearing as he might fearing him as though he were an open enemy because in difficult times

00:15:46.400 that's just what he will be so he says all right look first thing you need to do is evaluate

00:15:51.120 nobles and if they're tying themselves to you without any kind of malice uh they're not greedy

00:15:57.340 for anything then that's great you should honor them you should elevate them if you have the

00:16:01.140 loyalty of a noble and it's kind of through thick and thin no matter what he's getting from you

00:16:05.240 then ultimately that's a good thing and you should embrace this guy however if there are there's like

00:16:10.360 two types of people that might not side with you you've got nobles that are just weak and scared

00:16:15.500 he says that's fine because those guys are so cowardly they're not going to do anything they

00:16:19.900 don't really represent a threat they were too cowardly to join you but that also means they're 0.51

00:16:23.820 probably too cowardly to ultimately leave you or betray you so they'll probably be useful at certain

00:16:29.080 times and when things get bad you just don't have to worry about it however if you do have a noble

00:16:34.040 who doesn't want to because he's so ambitious about himself because he ultimately is going to

00:16:39.580 make a move on you or he has some level of threat he's going to present to you that's what you want

00:16:44.540 to worry about because the minute things go south that guy is going to come for you he has the

00:16:48.640 courage he didn't do he didn't uh you know eschew uh connections to you just because he was worried

00:16:54.140 about what might happen he did it because he truly has other plans he has designs on your position

00:16:59.780 you need to watch out for them that ambitious guy because if things go sideways he's going to take

00:17:04.600 advantage as soon as possible someone who becomes a prince through popular favor then ought to keep

00:17:11.620 the people friendly towards him and this isn't difficult because all they ask for is that he not

00:17:18.060 oppress them but someone who becomes a prince through the favor of the nobles against the

00:17:21.900 people's wishes should make it his first priority to win the people over to himself and he can

00:17:27.420 easily do this by taking them under his protection when men are well treated by someone the loyalty

00:17:32.920 they'll have towards their benefactor will be especially great if they have expected him to

00:17:38.140 treat them badly the prince can win their affections in many ways but i shouldn't go into

00:17:43.280 those because they are too various depending on the circumstances to be brought under fixed rule

00:17:48.420 the bottom line is simply a prince must have the people friendly towards him otherwise he has no

00:17:53.420 security in difficult times. So again, Machiavelli, big believer in elite theory,

00:17:58.180 the founder of elite theory. It's the elites that matter. It's the elites that lead. It's

00:18:02.260 elite opinion that determines everything. We care about the elites. However, this is a mistake a lot

00:18:08.340 of elite opinion or elite theory people make. They then just say, well, the opinion of the people

00:18:12.780 means nothing. The favor of the people means nothing. It's all elites all the way down. And

00:18:17.260 Machiavelli says, no, no, no, no. It is the elites that rule. It is the elites who make the decision.

00:18:22.200 it is the elites that lead and you should be looking towards the elites to understand power

00:18:26.620 however if you're a king you need the people you need the favor of the people you are not safe

00:18:32.440 without the favor of the people and he says there's easy ways to do this right even if you're

00:18:36.860 brought up by uh the aristocracy by the nobles you can still secure the favor of the people and you

00:18:42.960 should it's relatively easy you just need to protect them you need to offer them things you

00:18:47.200 need to protect them against the nobles give them as much freedom as possible and if you have that

00:18:52.100 you're going to be in a safe position if however you came to power under the nobles and you don't

00:18:56.660 have the favor of the people you're always in a precarious position and you're extremely dependent

00:19:01.360 on the favor of the nobles not a good place to be now as prince of spartans successfully uh defended

00:19:08.220 his country and his government against all uh against an attack by all of greece and by victorious

00:19:14.580 by a victorious roman army army to overcome this peril he had to make himself secure against a few

00:19:21.500 of his subjects but a few wouldn't have been sufficient if the people had been hostile to him

00:19:26.220 don't challenge what i am saying here by producing the trite proverb that he who builds on the people

00:19:32.180 builds on mud for this is not unrestrictedly true the proverb is true when a private citizen

00:19:39.100 builds his power on the foundation persuading himself that people will free him when he's

00:19:45.120 oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrate that would be a that would be prince may very

00:19:51.080 well be disappointed by the outcome as were the gracchi in rome and georgia scali in florence but

00:19:57.940 it's but if it's a prince who has established himself on popular favor a prince who knows how

00:20:03.800 to lead is brave keeps his head in a crisis takes the right precautions and by his own resolution

00:20:09.260 and energy keeps the whole people encouraged he won't be disappointed it will turn out that he

00:20:14.600 laid good foundations for his people there says look you have to be careful yes yes it's true to

00:20:21.200 some extent that if you build your your power on the people they could not be there for you

00:20:26.920 especially if you're this private citizen who has built the foundation on the power of the people

00:20:32.020 however if you've been elevated to that level of prince and you are also building the favor with

00:20:40.800 the people that's going to be a firmer foundation so he says don't entirely you know rely on uh the

00:20:47.100 people especially if you're a a private citizen elevated by them but if you are a prince and you

00:20:52.960 can secure the power uh and the prestige with the people that is far better that's going to hedge

00:20:59.800 your bets against the aristocracy that's going to make you safer you have to constantly worry about

00:21:04.700 the average person wanted to assassinate you or overthrow you or you know rob your uh your

00:21:09.680 castles these kind of things like that's going to be a far better situation to be in this kind of

00:21:14.680 prince is most at risk when he's passing through civil to absolute government let us look at why

00:21:20.280 this is so the prince in question rules either personally or through a magistrate if through a

00:21:26.100 magistrate that is a source of weakness and insecurity in his government again always 0.74

00:21:31.740 Machiavelli making sure you understand it's critical who has power where it's distributed

00:21:37.800 it think about your sovereignty understand it have you handed your power out to someone else

00:21:42.840 are they ruling in your name because you might not have direct control you might be opening

00:21:47.200 yourself up to a dangerous situation if through magistrates that is a source of weakness and

00:21:52.780 insecurity in his government because it rests entirely on the goodwill of the citizen who has

00:21:57.500 been raised to the magistrate and who can especially in troubled times easily destroy

00:22:01.740 the government through intrigue or open defiance and at such times the prince didn't uh won't be

00:22:07.740 able to exercise absolute authority because his subjects accustomed his subjects accustomed as

00:22:13.120 they are to getting orders from the magistrate aren't going to start taking orders from him

00:22:16.700 in a time of crisis so if you've elevated this this uh private citizen and they are the ones

00:22:22.220 that are giving orders and your people are used to taking orders uh from someone like a magistrate

00:22:26.600 then they are probably not going to pay attention to you in times of crisis and you're giving the

00:22:31.960 magistrate the possibility of destroying your government also as such a time there will always

00:22:37.100 be a scarcity of men the prince can trust he can't rely uh on what he sees when things are quiet and

00:22:44.640 the citizens need the government at such times everyone comes running everyone promises to do

00:22:49.900 what he wants and everyone wants to die for him when there is no immediate prospect of death but

00:22:54.900 in troubled times when the government needs the citizens he uh he finds that very few very few

00:23:02.560 show up mightn't the prince at least try relying on the citizens loyalty that would be a risky

00:23:08.400 experiment made made all the more dangerous by the fact that it can be tried only once so a shrewd

00:23:14.940 prince ought to handle things in such a way that his citizens will always in all circumstances

00:23:19.700 need the government and need him then uh will then he will always find them loyal so Machiavelli

00:23:27.160 tells you something that you probably already know the government needs people to need it

00:23:32.820 the ruler who wants to be secure in his power has to be needed the minute the people don't need the

00:23:38.740 government they'll say all this stuff they'll say oh we can do all these things for you we'll die

00:23:43.180 for you we'll we'll do all these amazing things for you but when push comes to shove when it's

00:23:47.800 time to actually make things happen. They're nowhere to be seen. They've left. You need people

00:23:53.580 who need you. They have to feel dependent on you. And this is why every ruler, whether they admit

00:24:01.040 it or not, goes out of their way to make people as dependent on them as possible. You might not

00:24:07.320 like this. A lot of people are going to say, oh, well, this is this bad. Well, maybe it is. And as

00:24:11.840 someone who doesn't want to be, you know, under someone's control, you probably don't want to be

00:24:16.040 dependent on a government or a king. In fact, if I was to offer you some advice, I would say

00:24:20.540 be as independent as possible. But if you're trying to think about power, if you're trying

00:24:24.700 to understand power, this is important. And the founders knew this, of course, right? They wanted

00:24:30.080 people to be as not dependent as they could get. They wanted people to be as independent as they

00:24:36.940 could be. That's what they knew would create a republic. Now, remember, Machiavelli is not

00:24:41.120 talking about a republic he's talking about a prince so this is critical Machiavelli is giving

00:24:46.120 the advice he believes will most help the prince even though Machiavelli favors republics so he's

00:24:52.560 not telling you what's moral he's not telling you even what he would prefer he's telling you

00:24:57.000 specifically what will benefit the class of people he's giving advice to Machiavelli is acting kind

00:25:02.920 of like a lawyer here right is it good is it bad do you want to defend a murderer no but maybe that's

00:25:08.900 part of the job and so you give advice to the defense attorney that will work for them even if

00:25:14.860 you don't agree with what they're doing the attorney's job is to give the advice to the

00:25:18.420 client that's honest even if they don't like what that person's done right you still advise them as

00:25:24.640 such and that's kind of what Machiavelli is doing here whether you agree with having a king or not

00:25:28.680 and Machiavelli actually doesn't you still give the advice and the advice is make the people as

00:25:35.240 depended on you as possible chapter 10 how to measure the strength of a principality in examining

00:25:43.420 the character of any one of these principalities we have to face the question does the prince have

00:25:48.520 enough power to be able to rely on his own resources in time of need or does he need help

00:25:53.460 from others let me be clear about the line i'm drawing is between the prince who has enough men

00:25:59.320 or money to be able to raise a sufficient army or join battle against an attacker and the prince who

00:26:04.420 can't show himself against the enemy in the field and has a shelter behind the walls of his city

00:26:09.280 waiting for help. Again, always Machiavelli talking about the king, the prince, the authority

00:26:15.560 needs to have control of the violence. The prince for Machiavelli does many things, but his primary

00:26:21.920 office is that of warlord. He is a warrior. He needs to be able to command on the field. He needs

00:26:28.900 to be able to bring troops to battle. He needs to have the money and the ability to raise an army

00:26:33.860 and to bring it to battle.

00:26:36.060 And if you're not that,

00:26:37.080 if you are some civilian ruler

00:26:39.460 who does not have direct control of the government,

00:26:42.000 then that means you are dependent on someone else.

00:26:44.580 And that means that when the time comes,

00:26:46.440 you're going to be sitting behind your walls,

00:26:48.320 desperately hoping that whoever you're dependent on

00:26:50.280 comes to your aid.

00:26:51.980 That's why every single country in the world

00:26:55.060 that is dependent on the United States

00:26:57.220 for its military is not sovereign.

00:27:00.740 They are by definition not sovereign.

00:27:03.860 So, yeah, that means basically all of Europe, not really sovereign, dependent on the United States to be the major leader of NATO.

00:27:14.120 Now, Israel is an interesting scenario. 0.66

00:27:16.060 Obviously, they need the United States.

00:27:18.320 They cannot do the military operations they want to do alone.

00:27:21.140 We're seeing that right now.

00:27:22.440 We're living that right now.

00:27:23.520 But they seem to dictate a lot more than this normal sovereign relationship would express, which makes us wonder.

00:27:33.060 what's going on here, right? Because under Machiavelli's definition, Israel should be 0.93

00:27:37.740 entirely subordinate to the United States. That doesn't seem to be the case. So that means there

00:27:41.700 must be something else going on. There has to be another path to power that Israel has taken 0.93

00:27:47.200 that is not the normal sovereign understanding. Again, this is why people don't like it when you

00:27:54.300 start studying power, but this is pretty obvious, right? We have the conditions by which a sovereign

00:27:59.800 should rule so if we see something breaking the pattern we need to look for other answers

00:28:05.420 i've discussed in chapter six and we'll return in chapter 12 to 14 all i can say about this is to

00:28:12.200 is to advise such princes to provision and fortify their cities and not to defend their

00:28:18.440 rural areas if a prince has fortified the city well and has managed his subject's concerns in

00:28:23.900 the way that i have described and will return to later others will be very cautious about attacking

00:28:29.300 him men are never enthusiastic about enterprises that have that can see that they can see will be

00:28:37.500 difficult and will be seen to be difficult to attack a ruler who is in his city and well fortified

00:28:43.120 and isn't hated by his people so fortify the city have the uh have the supplies have what you need

00:28:50.140 and make sure the people like you and if that's the case if you have the favor of the people

00:28:54.320 you have a well-fortified city, and you have a well-provisioned city, people are just very

00:28:59.360 unlikely to attack you because it's going to be difficult, and people don't like doing what's

00:29:03.140 difficult. They want easy targets. They want easy victories. When cities of Germany are absolutely

00:29:10.120 independent, they have little rural territory. They obey the emperor when it suits them

00:29:16.820 too, and they aren't afraid of the emperor or any of his neighbors. That's because they are so well

00:29:23.060 fortified that everyone thinks it would be tedious and difficult to take them and they'll always give

00:29:28.660 have good moats and walls enough artillery public depots and enough food drink and fuel to last a

00:29:35.140 year also to support the people without public expenditures or handouts they have a stock of

00:29:41.420 raw materials that will provide a year's worth in trades that are the city's lifeblood and thus a

00:29:47.480 wages of the workers in them they also have respect for military exercises and have many

00:29:52.940 rule uh rules to make sure that they are held all right so this is a really interesting paragraph

00:29:58.960 actually there's a lot to pull out of here so if you're not aware at this time we did not have a

00:30:04.000 unified germany as you understand it you have like this holy roman empire and the different princes

00:30:09.640 have a large degree of control in these different areas uh and that you know so you have like

00:30:15.840 mixtures of principalities and republics kind of all in here and uh he says look ultimately

00:30:21.760 because these areas are so autonomous because they have their own fortifications because

00:30:27.600 they tend to have uh well uh well-defined cities they have all of these uh you know different

00:30:33.480 logistical concerns uh taken care of people are just not going to go mess with them it's just

00:30:39.180 going to be too tedious too difficult too costly and so even you know when it comes to obeying the

00:30:45.280 emperor that kind of just do it when they want to and again that kind of goes against our idea an

00:30:49.960 emperor has to be powerful an emperor has to have total control an emperor would be authoritarian

00:30:55.080 right well no actually not really because if these different areas have a high degree of autonomy

00:31:02.000 there's only so much the emperor can do and it would be unwise for the emperor to test his

00:31:06.780 authority against people who could legitimately reject it and so he usually goes with a light

00:31:12.640 hand. Again, there's just this misunderstanding of how monarchy used to work, how emperors and kings

00:31:18.900 used to work. They did not have this constant tyrannical authority. In fact, they had to be

00:31:24.900 very careful about how they express their authority when there are situations where those that they're

00:31:29.240 expressing authority over could revolt. So you want to make sure that if you're going to force

00:31:34.980 that authority down, the person can't ultimately resist it because that's going to make you look

00:31:39.460 week and so most emperors and kings did not exert the level of authority that they theoretically had

00:31:44.740 because they knew that if that authority was rejected by people who could reject it then that

00:31:49.700 would be a serious mistake also very interesting in here he says that they they don't just have

00:31:56.180 the food and the drink and everything else that you think you'd need in a siege they also have

00:32:01.700 all the things you would need to work a trade for a year that's really interesting because because

00:32:07.160 the city is not agricultural. They're not farming, that kind of thing. That's why they need the food

00:32:11.780 and the water and everything stored up. Their money, their, their lifeblood is really these

00:32:17.300 guilt. It's these tradesmen. It's the crafts that can only occur in the city, right? That that's

00:32:22.760 where they really make their money in their economy. Basically saying you need to be ready

00:32:26.580 to do domestic manufacturing. Your sovereignty is based on domestic manufacturing. Can you

00:32:32.300 continue to produce the things you need to produce? Can you continue to operate your economy

00:32:36.860 domestically when you're sieged when you couldn't otherwise trade with other people if the answer

00:32:42.780 is yes then it's going to be far harder to drive you out of the city we can translate this into

00:32:48.180 the modern day one of the reasons that our country is particularly vulnerable and has to maintain

00:32:53.300 a global empire is we've offshored all of our manufacturing so we can't maintain our sovereignty

00:32:59.560 because we can't maintain our economy without those open shipping lanes if america was somehow

00:33:04.900 embargoed, if we had a whole blockade around the United States tomorrow, we would have serious

00:33:11.780 problems logistically because of the way we structured our economy. Now, we're lucky in that

00:33:17.060 the way that our country is positioned globally, we don't have to worry about that, but that's

00:33:21.380 really important advice. Thus, a prince who has a strong city and hasn't made himself hated

00:33:29.760 won't be attacked anyone who did attack him would be driven off humiliated because this world is so

00:33:35.880 is so challengeable that it's almost impossible to keep an army idle besieging a city for a whole

00:33:41.940 year someone may object if the people have property outside the city and see it burnt

00:33:47.220 they won't remain patient and long siege and self-interest will make them forget their prince

00:33:52.180 i reply with a strong energetic prince will overcome all such difficulties by giving a

00:33:57.340 subjects hope that the trouble will soon overcome be over uh scaring uh scaring them with tales of

00:34:03.400 enemies cruelty and moving nimbly to protect uh himself from those uh of his subjects who seem

00:34:09.660 to uh who seem to him to be too bold so here he's saying okay look yeah you you can you know pull

00:34:16.060 everyone in the city you can be sieged by these people but what if they go around burning everything

00:34:20.180 in the country all these people who've been pulled into the city from the country they're 0.99

00:34:23.760 going to look outside of their property burning and they're going to want to leave they're going

00:34:26.480 to betray you so they can go defend that and he says no you which all you need is a strong enough

00:34:31.040 prince who's going to ensure the people that uh you know that eventually this hardship's going to

00:34:36.520 be over and there'll be some kind of vengeance or some kind of restitution and he tells him very

00:34:41.360 directly scare your people scare your people with the enemy tales of the enemy's cruelty make it

00:34:46.600 clear to them that if they go out of the city if they go out beyond your protection you're going

00:34:50.920 to uh they're gonna get hurt again maybe not the most moral advice go scare your citizens

00:34:56.600 but a a powerful trick when we have seen before when you are probably familiar with right now

00:35:03.180 if we don't take action right now they're gonna get us they're they're weeks away weeks away from

00:35:10.340 a bomb you know not not exactly a new not exactly you know we we have to fight them over there so

00:35:16.400 they don't we don't have to fight them over here not a new tactic also as the enemy approaching

00:35:21.820 the city they will naturally burn and ruin the countryside this will happen at a time when

00:35:27.540 spirits of the people are still high and they are determined to resist this should actually

00:35:31.540 encourage the prince because a few days later when the spirits have cooled the damage is already done

00:35:36.060 and the bad thing has already happened and there is no remedy for them so the people will uh all

00:35:41.280 will be all the more ready to support the prince because he seems to have under obligation to them

00:35:46.680 now that their houses have been burnt and their possessions ruined by his defense they will

00:35:51.920 support him because he is obliged to them yes because it's human nature to be bound to the

00:35:57.080 benefits of one benefits one gives as much as those one receives all things considered therefore

00:36:04.460 it won't be hard for a wise prince to keep the minds of his citizens steadfast through a siege

00:36:09.060 as long as they have food and weaponry so he says don't worry about people who are we're watching

00:36:14.180 the countryside burn because that's going to happen at the beginning of the war at the beginning of

00:36:17.940 the battle when people are still on your side when it's still popular when they're still passionate

00:36:22.760 about the conflict and he says once that passion cools and people start you know thinking a little

00:36:28.080 more and worrying a little more well it's too late the countryside's already burned there's nothing

00:36:32.220 for them to do about that that moment has already passed and now they're going to be dependent on

00:36:36.740 you because they need you to get that retribution they need you to get that payback for what

00:36:41.540 happened here and they also need you to defend them against the guys that are now there so more

00:36:45.660 or less you don't have to worry about this because the bad stuff's going to happen while the people

00:36:49.100 support you and as soon as you start losing support it's too late the bad stuff's already

00:36:52.780 happened so there's nothing they can do about it plus they're going to want vengeance they're going

00:36:56.920 to want restitution again you don't have to think too hard to kind of uh consider how this might

00:37:04.840 apply in our current day well and once the bad things happen you already have the support and

00:37:09.460 once people withdraw it's too late because now they need you to get vengeance for all the bad

00:37:14.060 things that have happened you let the problem occur and then you sell yourself as a solution

00:37:19.920 to that problem a classic political move we've seen and now we know its origins or at least

00:37:25.360 one of its uh the people who laid out how that works chapter 11 ecclesiastical principalities

00:37:32.440 up to here i've been discussing kinds of states and the ways to become a prince i am nearly

00:37:37.740 finished with the whole topic all that is left for me to discuss are ecclesiastical principalities

00:37:42.820 church states the difficulties that occur in relation to these concerns what happens on the

00:37:49.260 way to getting possession because once such a principality has been acquired whether by virtue

00:37:55.680 or fortune it can be held onto without either that's because church states are backed by ancient

00:38:01.640 religious institutions that are so powerful and of such a character that princes can stay in power

00:38:08.480 no matter how they behave and live. These are the only princes who have states that they don't

00:38:13.660 defend as subjects who they don't rule. And the states, although unguarded, are not taken from

00:38:19.420 them. And the subjects don't mind not being ruled and don't want to alienate themselves and have no

00:38:25.120 way of doing so. Those are the only principalities that are secure and happy, but they're upheld by

00:38:31.100 divine powers to which the human mind can't reach so i shan't say anything more about them

00:38:36.160 they uh they are raised up and maintained by god it would be uh presumptuous and rash to discuss

00:38:43.040 them so uh he's saying basically here look if you got your rule from god if if people are believed

00:38:51.980 so thoroughly in the church that you have been given control over this area and that they will

00:38:58.160 not transgress it. They will not take it because they would be defiling God's word. They would be

00:39:03.000 at war with God himself. Well, congratulations, basically, because you don't have to worry about

00:39:08.060 it. You don't have to defend the area. You don't even have to rule the people because ultimately

00:39:12.320 you were given this by God and it can't be taken away from you. Anyone who crosses you is going to 0.96

00:39:17.660 be crossing the church. They've been crossing God almighty, and that is going to be beyond the pale

00:39:22.600 for them. So if you are someone who has kind of ended up in the situation where you control an

00:39:27.060 area and people believe it's because of divine right, because God has given it to you and they

00:39:31.300 would never, ever go in there and try to challenge your rule because that would be violating a

00:39:37.120 religion they truly believe in. Well, then don't worry because you're pretty secure. And he says,

00:39:43.260 basically, in fact, this is such a secure power and so beyond really the normal understanding of

00:39:49.680 power that I don't even really discuss it anymore. But then he does a little bit, except for one

00:39:54.360 matter someone may want to say how does it come about the church has so greatly increased its

00:39:59.260 temporal power before the papacy of alexander the sixth the italian rulers not only of the great

00:40:04.880 states but every baron and lord however minor regarded the church's temporal power as almost

00:40:11.000 negligible but now a king of france trembles before it and it has been able to drive him from

00:40:16.580 italy and ruin to the ruin of the venetians what happened remember one of the through lines you see

00:40:23.500 and Machiavelli as well is his frustration with the church having the level of political influence

00:40:28.240 it does in Italy. Really, Machiavelli did not want the church to be dictating to the level it did

00:40:34.960 when it comes to Italian politics. So he's going to hit on this and say, hey, for most of history,

00:40:41.860 the church has not been considered that powerful when it came to temporal matters, or I guess today

00:40:47.260 in the modern world, we'd call these secular matters. But all of a sudden, the pope can now

00:40:52.200 make kings powerful kings tremble what happened though the answer is well known it may be worthwhile

00:40:58.680 for us to remind ourselves of before the king before king charles the eighth of france moved

00:41:03.980 into italy this country was dominated by the pope the venetians the king of naples the dukes of milan

00:41:10.140 and the florentines each of these uh powers has two two main concerns that no foreign army should

00:41:16.700 enter italy and that none other than the four should seize more territory though those about

00:41:22.180 whom uh there was the most anxiety were the popes and the venetians the venetians could be held back

00:41:28.920 only by the other three working together and to keep down the popes the others had to make use

00:41:33.840 of the barons of rome there were split into two factions there were sinis and the colonists

00:41:38.800 and they were always on the brink of outright fighting so there so there they were weapons

00:41:44.520 at the ready under the eye of the pope and this kept the papacy weak and indecisive the brevity

00:41:49.840 of each individual papacy contributing to this popes have on average reigned about 10 years and

00:41:55.400 that's hardly enough for a pope to pull down one of the factions and if of course uh or and if for

00:42:01.780 example one pope came near to destroying the colonists he was uh he was to be succeeded by one

00:42:08.100 a one who was hostile to the arenis that successor would pull the colonists up again and that

00:42:14.620 wouldn't have enough power to ruin the arsenis that's why pope's temporal powers weren't given

00:42:18.760 much respect in italy so he says basically there's this kind of tension this dynamic uh in a way uh

00:42:25.820 breaches of government right the fact that every one of these different groups had to play each

00:42:32.000 other's power off each other to kind of restrict the other one meant that no one could really

00:42:36.960 consolidate control because if you tried to knock out one of these powers to bring more power to

00:42:41.440 yourself eventually there would be this pendulum effect and they'd come back and you wouldn't be

00:42:45.480 able to control the results of that and so everyone kind of was in this Nash equilibrium

00:42:49.780 everyone's operating on the best strategy they can have at the moment they're they're playing

00:42:54.880 the best cards that they have on a regular basis and this kind of maintained the situation

00:42:58.880 then came Pope Alexander VI who was more than any previous pope showed that a pope could do

00:43:05.780 what a pope could do with money and arms using duke valentino uh caesar borgia the and exploiting

00:43:12.600 the opportunity provided by the french invasion of italy he did all the things that i mentioned

00:43:17.220 in chapter 7 when discussing the duke's actions his aim was to build up the duke not the church

00:43:22.500 but his actions did make the church more powerful and that increased power was the legacy that was

00:43:28.180 left so the church after alexander's death and the downfall of his son after alexander there was pope

00:43:34.660 Julius II, who found the church strong. It had control of all of Romania and the Roman barons

00:43:41.160 and their factions had been wiped out by Alexander's severity. Julius also found a way for the church to

00:43:48.900 accumulate money, a way that had never been followed before by Alexander VI. Julius didn't

00:43:53.980 just follow the policies, he improved upon them. He planned to capture Bologna and squelch the

00:43:59.320 Venetians and to chase the French out of Italy. He succeeded in all of this, and what makes this 0.99

00:44:04.340 especially credible is that he did to is is that he did it to strengthen the church and not to

00:44:10.900 benefit any private person as alexander sought to benefit his son he also kept the orsini and the

00:44:16.440 factions within the bounds in which he found them and all the and although a few of the of their

00:44:22.740 leaders were poised to make trouble two things held them back the greatness of the church with

00:44:27.760 which julia julius terrified them and they're not having their own cardinals when these factions

00:44:33.180 have their uh have their cardinals they don't remain quiet for long because cardinals take

00:44:37.880 sides both inside rome and out of it and barons are compelled to support them in this way the

00:44:43.760 ambitions of the prelates generate disorders and tumults among the barons for this reason his

00:44:49.720 holiness pope leo x formerly the cardinal de medici found uh the papacy in a very uh strong

00:44:56.920 condition and is to be hoped uh that that there were others made it and it is to be hoped uh that

00:45:03.960 there were others made it great force great through force sorry strange in the structure there

00:45:09.800 he will make it even greater and more venerated through his great his goodness and his countless

00:45:14.920 other virtues so he says okay this guy recognized the momentum that had been created by his uh

00:45:21.100 previous pope and he recognized what could be done with this money and this power and because

00:45:26.160 he wanted to aggrandize the power of the church and not just build up this power and then hand

00:45:30.760 it off to his son in the way that pope alexander had that meant that he was truly accruing it to

00:45:36.880 this organization it wasn't kind of like using the church and using the organization to then

00:45:42.000 set up someone else's power so there's a very different scenario want to go electric without

00:45:48.180 sacrificing fun that's the volkswagen id4 all electric and thoughtfully designed to elevate

00:45:55.340 your modern lifestyle the volkswagen id4 is fun to drive with instant acceleration that makes city

00:46:01.100 streets feel like open roads plus a refined interior with innovative technology always at

00:46:06.660 your fingertips the all-electric id4 you deserve more fun visit vw.ca to learn more suvw german

00:46:14.540 engineered for all all right now our big chapter here

00:46:19.720 the different kinds of armies mercenaries chapter 12 now that i have given a detailed account of the

00:46:30.040 kinds of principal principalities that i set out to discuss and have paid some attention to the

00:46:35.240 causes of their flourishing or failing and have shown the methods by which many men have tried

00:46:39.860 to acquire them and retain them i turn to a less detailed account of how each kind of principality

00:46:46.320 can be attacked and defended i've spoken now uh i've spoken of how necessary it is for a prince

00:46:52.760 to have firm foundations for his power otherwise he will go to ruin the chief chief foundation for

00:46:58.700 all states new states and all new states as well as older composite ones are good laws and good

00:47:05.280 armies because a poorly armed state doesn't have good laws and a well-armed state will will have

00:47:11.340 good laws i i can set the laws aside and address myself to the armies the army which a prince

00:47:19.160 defends his state with will either be his own or mercenaries or auxiliaries soldiers belonging to

00:47:25.340 a commander by other or commanded by other princes or some mixture of the above mercenaries and

00:47:31.400 auxiliaries are useless and dangerous uh and any ruler who lies on them to defend his state 1.00

00:47:38.600 will be insecure and in peril because they are disunited ambitious under undisciplined and 0.99

00:47:45.740 disloyal courageous when they are with their friends cowardly in the presence of their enemies

00:47:50.880 they have no fear of god and don't keep their promises all right so lots there he says look

00:47:57.960 if you're going to be a prince you got to have a firm foundation and the foundation of your power

00:48:02.760 is violence it's the ability to do damage you need a good army okay so what kind of armies we

00:48:08.960 have well you can have your own army you have an army based on mercenaries people you're paying

00:48:13.420 or you can have auxiliaries which are uh are forces that are on your side but you don't control

00:48:19.780 they have their loyalty to someone else usually another prince another king another army never

00:48:26.020 use them he says never use mercenaries or auxiliaries because they're not tied to you

00:48:32.760 they're they're not going to be ultimately loyal to you so they're going to be disunited they're

00:48:39.560 going to be insecure your power is always going to be perilous they're going to be undisciplined

00:48:44.120 they'll be disloyal because they're only there for pay or because some other government is telling

00:48:47.960 them to be there they'll be create courageous you know they'll be very boastful when it's just them

00:48:53.760 hanging out in the field but when it's time to actually do battle they're going to be cowardly

00:48:57.960 because there's again no reason for them to keep their promises they're not going to fear god and

00:49:02.560 they're not going to keep their promises because they're not loyal to you again many many many

00:49:08.580 applications of this is why george washington told us to not make military alliances prolong

00:49:13.920 military alliances because you can't trust auxiliaries you can't trust someone else's

00:49:18.380 troops to do your job for you this is for instance when i hear people say things like

00:49:23.080 we need to be uh you know we need to be uh in this long-term special relationship with israel

00:49:28.380 because they can give us, uh, intelligence. No, no, that's, that's an auxiliary. That's not your

00:49:34.800 force. You don't control it. And likewise for Israel, you know, you, if you make, if America

00:49:40.480 is your auxiliary and America decides to do something else, well, it's unreliable for you.

00:49:44.940 They're not loyal to you. Ultimately their interests should at least diverge from yours.

00:49:49.460 So these are unwise. Again, we see this with, uh, so many international treaties, NATO, all this

00:49:55.680 stuff you're counting on other people's troops to do your work the un peacekeeping forces that

00:50:02.180 kind of thing always going to be cowardly always going to be undisciplined always going to be

00:50:06.420 unreliable with them as his army the only way a prince can hold off his own ruin is by holding

00:50:13.180 off any military attack in peace one is robbed by them and in war by the enemy why because those

00:50:19.880 that because they have no affection for you and no reason to go to battle except small wages you

00:50:25.320 pay them and those aren't enough to make them willing to die for you so he's like don't fool

00:50:29.400 yourself any guy who's only fighting for pay is not loyalty yeah there might you know mercenaries

00:50:36.620 have certainly died on the battlefield but if you're looking for that unbreakable strength

00:50:40.420 that unbreakable will the guy who pushes forward and fights the guy who gets the medal of honor

00:50:44.980 the guy who who storms the the machine gun nest or does the incredibly brave thing they're only

00:50:50.960 going to do that if they really believe in the cause if they're really loyal to you if they're

00:50:55.440 just there for pay we're not going to dive on grenades for you what's the point of diving on

00:51:00.680 the grenade for a guy who paid you a little bit of money he's not going to pay you you're not

00:51:04.740 going to be able to spend the money when you're dead the only thing that gives you that desire

00:51:09.360 to sacrifice yourself is an existential connection right something that is transcendent that that you

00:51:15.880 say i would rather die than betray this connection i need it so much that it'd be worth dying for

00:51:23.200 like that's something you're not going to get from somebody you just sent a check to

00:51:27.580 they're ready enough to be your soldiers while there aren't where they aren't at war with anyone

00:51:32.720 but when the war comes they'll either desert you or run away on the battlefield if it does it

00:51:38.300 shouldn't be hard to convince the reader of this because italy's downfall has been caused purely

00:51:43.220 by the long period of reliance on mercenaries for a while they look good and actually won some

00:51:49.280 battles against some other mercenaries but when the forces when the foreign armies show up the

00:51:53.880 mercenaries were revealed in their true colors that's how it was possible for charles the eighth

00:52:00.060 of france to seize italy with chalk in hand so savannan rolla again italian is fun uh told us

00:52:07.900 that our sins were the cause of italy's troubles and he was right but the trouble came not from 0.80

00:52:13.060 the sins that we're thinking of, but the ones I have described. They were the sins of the princes.

00:52:18.280 It is fitting that the princes have also suffered the penalty. So he says, look, you've made a

00:52:24.160 mistake by relying on mercenaries. Yeah, mercenaries might go into the field and they might

00:52:28.880 even beat another mercenary army, but you will go up against a real army, a king's army, an army

00:52:34.000 that is fighting for their lord, their nobility, their country, their cause, their God, their truth.

00:52:39.620 they are not going to be broken by some guys who are just getting pay the guys who are getting paid

00:52:46.200 are going to break before the guys who are serving their true king that's going to just be a totally

00:52:51.760 different thing and he says you know you really have to worry worry about this because we've seen

00:52:56.300 italy be destroyed by this so if you don't know at this time again italy is not a unified force

00:53:02.900 right you know as he described previously it's this delicate balance of all these different

00:53:08.000 other powers different kings different dukes uh different uh oligarchies all the church they're

00:53:14.820 all playing off each other italy is really more of a collection of city states at this time we

00:53:21.480 don't have a unified italy until garibaldi in fact that was part of uh machiavelli's point

00:53:27.320 by the end of the prince it becomes clear he wants italy to unify he wants to have that same

00:53:32.860 kind of unified power and he thinks italy's going to continue to get run over it's going to continue

00:53:37.780 to get run run over until uh yeah they figure that out until they they fix this problem machiavelli

00:53:44.880 knows this from experience because he had uh mercenary armies betray him repeatedly and so

00:53:50.460 he actually went out and built his own force uh he made it his mission he had to build that

00:53:56.800 republican force that he could draw on because he was so tired of having mercenaries betray him

00:54:01.960 i want to show more clearly how unsatisfactory mercenary armies are if a given mercenary

00:54:09.420 commander is a is virtuous then you can then you can't trust him because he will be busy pursuing

00:54:15.580 power for himself either by turning against you his employer or attacking people whom you don't

00:54:21.520 want to attack and if he isn't virtuous his incompetence will work against you in the usual

00:54:28.380 way someone might object what what you have said about mercenary commanders holds for anyone

00:54:33.820 with soldiers under his command whether mercenary or not the implication of this

00:54:38.540 is that it doesn't matter what kind of soldier a state army has so he's saying here look if the

00:54:45.580 mercenary captain is is good at what he does again this is where he's using virtue and like

00:54:51.800 virtuoso here you are good at what you do if he's if he's good enough to to conquer and lead on his

00:54:58.280 own, he's not going to be happy just working for some other guy. If he's got the ambition and he's

00:55:03.360 got the skill, he's not just going to sit around and do the work for you. He's going to try to

00:55:06.840 secure his own power. So you can't expect him to ultimately be on your side. He's going to do

00:55:13.200 things that aren't in your interest because he's powerful enough. He's good enough at what he does

00:55:18.620 that ultimately he is going to be able to take that position. The implication of this is that

00:55:26.360 it doesn't matter what kind of soldier a state's army has i reply that it matters greatly and that

00:55:32.540 when uh armed force is to be used by a prince when the prince ought to do what the prince then

00:55:38.800 the prince ought to go in person and put himself in command of the army again always first and

00:55:45.040 foremost machiavelli believes the prince should be a warrior and then a republic go and when a

00:55:51.040 republic goes to war it has to send its citizens as commanders when one is sent he doesn't turn

00:55:55.580 out satisfactorily he should be recalled and then the commander turns out to be very capable there

00:56:01.300 should be laws that forbid him to exceed his assigned authority experience has shown princes

00:56:06.700 and republics with their own armies do extremely well and the mercenaries doing nothing but harm

00:56:13.200 and it is harder for a citizen to seize control of a republic than it is for his own for for

00:56:19.320 republic that has its own army, sorry, than to do this with a republic that relies on foreign 0.75

00:56:26.240 troops. All right. So if you're a prince, you should personally lead your troops. Don't give

00:56:31.260 command to mercenaries, to other countries and their leaders. You should lead them. If you're

00:56:37.120 a republic, you should send your citizens as commanders. If you have a bad one, bring them 0.98

00:56:41.480 back and get a new one out there. If you have a good one, make sure there are laws that make it

00:56:45.260 difficult for that guy to take power it says it's much more difficult for a skilled uh general to

00:56:52.720 take power in a republic if uh yeah you know because he's constrained by the laws however

00:56:59.500 if you have mercenaries if you have if you're using other people's troops that could be a

00:57:03.640 different story examples of the advantages of republic having its own army rome and sparta

00:57:09.640 stood for many ages armed and independent the swiss today are completely armed and entirely

00:57:14.560 independent examples of the troubles of republics get into when they rely on mercenaries in ancient

00:57:20.940 times the carthaginians were attacked by their mercenary soldiers after the first war with the

00:57:25.820 romans although the mercenaries were commanded by carthaginian citizens the thebians after the

00:57:32.060 death of their general uh epin epinondimus that's a fun one uh gave philip of macedon the command of

00:57:42.420 their army and after victory he took it away took away their liberty when duke philippo died and the

00:57:49.520 milanese engaged francisco suarza to lead their troops against the venetians he defeated the

00:57:56.640 venetians at carveogi and when uh and then allied himself with the crush uh and then here we go

00:58:04.720 lost it for a second and then allied himself uh with them to crush his employers the milanese 0.74

00:58:11.520 His father, having been engaged as an army commander by Queen Johan of Naples, left her unprotected so that to save her kingdom, she had to appeal to the king of Aragon for help.

00:58:25.640 it may it may be objected there are striking counter examples to your thesis about the dangers

00:58:32.180 of hiring mercenaries the venetians and florentines extended their dominions by the use of mercenaries

00:58:37.680 and their commanders didn't make themselves princes but defended their employers i reply that

00:58:43.560 this i reply that in this matter the florentines were favored by chance the virtuoso commanders

00:58:49.740 might have been uh threatened threats some weren't victorious some were met with opposition and

00:58:55.660 others turned their ambitions elsewhere one who wasn't victorious was john john hawkward and since

00:59:02.040 he didn't conquer his loyalty can't be proven but everyone will agree that if he had conquered the

00:59:09.380 florentines would have been at his mercy sforza had braccio's people always against him so the

00:59:16.900 Two mercenary leaders kept one another in check.

00:59:21.620 Sorza turned his ambition to Lombardy.

00:59:25.640 Braciano went against the church and the kingdom of Naples.

00:59:29.500 But let us look at what happened quite recently.

00:59:31.960 The Florentines appointed as their army commander, Paolo Vitelli, an extremely shrewd man who, from being an ordinary citizen, had ridden to great prominence.

00:59:45.120 there's no denying that this man has uh was captured sorry there's no denying that if this

00:59:52.560 man had captured pisa on their behalf the florentines would have uh had to return his services

00:59:58.300 because of their enemies because if their enemies hired him as a commander they the florentines

01:00:04.300 would be lost and if they keep and if they keep him they would have to obey him i.e there would

01:00:10.580 be nothing to stop him from installing self as prince so again Machiavelli is saying look if if

01:00:19.720 a mercenary happens to win and actually serves you and actually defends the people are supposed to

01:00:25.080 you got lucky you got really lucky because ultimately you're at the mercy of the guy with

01:00:29.300 the sword at the end of the day the guy with the sword the guy with the army makes the rules and

01:00:34.680 so if you're lucky enough to use another person's sword and secure victory and they don't turn on

01:00:40.340 you then you know pray pray to god thank god because ultimately you got incredibly incredibly

01:00:46.960 lucky the far more likely thing is that once you're victorious if the mercenary captain can

01:00:52.380 or if the foreign leader who you were using his arms can't they're going to turn on you

01:00:57.940 they're going to try to make themselves more powerful as for the venetians if we look at

01:01:04.820 their achievements we see that they fought confidently and gloriously so long as they

01:01:10.120 were made as they made war using their own men with nobles and armed commoners fighting valiantly

01:01:15.780 that was in sea battles when they began to fight on land they forsook their virtue

01:01:20.780 and followed the italian custom of hiring mercenaries in the early stages of their

01:01:26.040 expansion on land they had little to fear from their mercenary commanders because they didn't

01:01:31.200 have much territory for their commanders to eye greedily and because of their great reputation

01:01:37.180 which will have scared off many mercenaries who wanted to go up against them but when their domain

01:01:43.960 expanded as it did under uh carmen gula they got a taste of the trouble that mercenaries can bring

01:01:51.380 they saw that a virtue virtuoso soldier who was they beat the duke of milan under his leadership

01:01:58.620 but they also but they also saw that he was becoming lukewarm about the war against milan

01:02:04.980 and were afraid that he wouldn't bring them any more victories because he no longer had victory

01:02:09.880 in mind so they didn't want to keep him on their payroll but they couldn't or they wouldn't or

01:02:16.360 couldn't just dismiss him because they because that would threaten them with the loss of territory

01:02:21.640 they had just gained the threat coming from an enemy whose army was commanded by the able

01:02:26.320 permigula to keep themselves safe therefore they the only option was to kill him they recalled him 0.99

01:02:34.340 to venice and uh for consultation and then accused him of treason and tried to behead him

01:02:39.980 after him they had several mercenary commanders machiavelli names three of them uh who didn't

01:02:46.540 create a a fear of their willing of their winning victory and then getting out of hand because they

01:02:52.640 usually uh they usually lost as happens at the battle of valia there were in one battle they

01:02:59.480 lost everything they were acquired through eight centuries of effort the use of mercenaries brings

01:03:04.260 a widely spaced series of slow minor victories and a rapid rattle of large defeats these examples

01:03:10.340 concern Italy which have been ruled by many years by mercenaries and I want to discuss more fully

01:03:15.440 the problem that they raise because a because a grasp of its origins and growth will contribute

01:03:21.360 to finding a solution so he says look you can have this really virtuoso you know this really good

01:03:29.060 uh general he's a mercenary general he's out in the field but you feel like maybe he's not going

01:03:34.720 to get the job done he's ultimately losing that drive to to get the final battle done

01:03:39.200 you try to recall him but you can't recall him because he's might betray you you're pulling him

01:03:46.560 out of the situation he's going to lose authority he's going to lose the money all of the incentives

01:03:51.640 for him is ultimately to turn on you so they had to like bring this guy back and lie to him and try

01:03:56.680 to kill him to replace him right and then once you do that who knows if you're going to lose all

01:04:01.200 the territory that this guy has gained for you because once again you don't control the army 0.98

01:04:05.240 you don't control the swords the essential background facts are that in the recent times

01:04:11.660 the empire has been repudiated in italy the pope has acquired more temporal power and italy has

01:04:18.560 been divided up into states many of the great cities took up arms against their nobles who

01:04:23.440 ruled oppressively with the emperor's support. The church sided with the rebels as a way of

01:04:28.260 increasing its temporal power and many other towns private citizens became princes. The upshot of

01:04:34.740 this was that Italy fell partly into the hands of the church and the republics. The church

01:04:39.440 consisted of priests in the republics of civilians and both started to hire foreigners to do their

01:04:47.200 fighting. The first successful mercenary commander was Albergo de Cogno of Romagna, and it was

01:04:55.440 through learning about him that Bracchio and Sforza and others were in their time the arbiters

01:05:00.980 of Italy. After these came all the other mercenary commanders down to the present time. The result

01:05:07.020 of their virtue has been that Italy has been overrun by Charles of France, robbed by Louis

01:05:13.560 of France, ravaged by Ferdinand of Spain, and insulted by the Swiss.

01:05:20.500 Let's see.

01:05:23.960 Jump around a bit.

01:05:26.560 The mercenary commanders also did everything they could to lessen fatigue and danger to

01:05:32.740 themselves and their soldiers.

01:05:33.980 In battle, they don't kill, but merely took prisoners whom they freed without ever demanding

01:05:39.620 ransom.

01:05:40.180 all of these were permitted by the military rules which they devise and as i've said to enable them

01:05:47.220 to escape danger and hard work and so they have bought have brought italy to slavery and humiliation

01:05:53.580 so as you can see here machiavelli once again lands in the same place mercenaries are bad

01:05:59.000 mercenaries are going to betray you mercenaries are not going to fight on your side when the

01:06:02.760 going gets tough if they are victorious they're going to want to take over uh only if you're very

01:06:08.060 lucky would a mercenary uh you know basically have your entire city at his own mercy and then

01:06:13.300 just leave because you gave him money because the funny thing about swords is swords can always get

01:06:17.620 you money but money's can't money can't always get you swords and so a guy who has uh you know

01:06:24.220 all of your money uh basically at his disposal because he has all the swords is he is he really

01:06:29.560 going to go out and just kind of continue to fight or just walk away when he could just have all the

01:06:33.960 money to himself he has no loyalty to you why would he do that and this is why Italy was in

01:06:39.300 such a mess at the time of Machiavelli because these different republics these different peoples 1.00

01:06:44.480 they had gotten used to hiring mercenaries rather than sending their own people in the field

01:06:49.080 uh you know the the church and its papal states they're not going to usually have their uh armies

01:06:54.980 they're going to hire mercenaries they are the priests aren't going to go to battle the republics

01:06:59.860 fell out of favor with, you know, kind of raising up their own militias and going to war that way.

01:07:05.360 They wanted to hire other people to do their work for them. And Machiavelli is just providing this

01:07:09.520 laundry list of ways in which the mercenaries are ultimately going to betray you. And this is going

01:07:14.200 to be a huge mistake. All right, guys. Well, I think we're going to go ahead and wrap that one

01:07:20.380 up here. We're over an hour already, but I appreciate you coming by and enjoying these

01:07:25.280 streams i really like going over the political theory with you i know we got the day-to-day

01:07:30.220 news and i'm sure we'll jump back into that i've actually got a really interesting interview coming

01:07:34.360 on friday uh with dr ian mcgillcrest which i think you guys will enjoy quite a bit uh i pre-recorded

01:07:40.680 it so i think it's already a good one i think you're gonna enjoy it when i play it uh uh here

01:07:45.500 on friday uh but uh i really am glad that you guys are enjoying the series i've gotten uh some

01:07:51.280 several encouraging emails and things saying hey man i appreciate this i know the you know the day

01:07:56.180 to day political stuff is is more popular but uh really glad that somebody is taking the time to

01:08:00.920 go through this so i really appreciate uh you guys and your encouragement if you want to watch

01:08:05.440 all of these if you want to get the context for this chapter you're like oh i didn't i didn't see

01:08:09.340 the previous ones i want to eventually listen to all the prints with the commentary then you can go

01:08:14.320 to the playlist that's on my youtube and it'll under machiavelli eventually have all the episodes

01:08:19.300 uh we're most of the way through the prints at this point but it'll have everything once

01:08:23.340 the series is done of course you need to subscribe on youtube click the bell and

01:08:27.340 notifications so you know when we go live and we're doing these shows and if you want to get

01:08:31.680 these broadcasts as podcasts you need to subscribe to your macintyre show on your favorite podcast

01:08:36.860 platform when you do leave a rating or review it really helps with the algorithm magic thank

01:08:42.020 you everybody for watching as always i will talk to you next time

01:08:49.300 You

The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 11, 2026

Machiavelli on the Danger of Mercenaries ｜ 3⧸11⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript