The Auron MacIntyre Show - Machiavelli on the Power of Wickedness ｜ 3⧸9⧸26

00:00:00.720 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I am Oren McIntyre.

00:00:06.080 Before we get started today, I just want to remind you that one of the ways we keep the

00:00:09.340 lights on around here is of course subscriptions to Blaze TV. So if you want to support this

00:00:13.600 show and everything I'm doing, along with getting access to all the behind the scenes

00:00:17.880 material from your favorite Blaze TV hosts, you need to head to blazetv.com slash Oren

00:00:23.400 to get $20 off your subscription today. That's blazetv.com slash Oren. The promo code Oren

00:00:29.120 will get you $20 off your subscription. All right, guys, I know that the news continues,

00:00:38.320 but I want to be able to continue to mix in political theory. So I'll be able to discuss

00:00:44.580 this is what a lot of people do come to the channel for, and there's not a whole lot of

00:00:50.060 real news coming out of the war at the moment. It's a lot of misinformation, a lot of people

00:00:55.520 throwing things around. Obviously, you're going to wait for some bigger developments. And in the

00:01:00.820 meantime, I think it's best to return to our series on Machiavelli. We've been going through

00:01:06.420 Machiavelli's The Prince, which of course has a lot of eternal truth and understanding when it comes

00:01:11.560 to the way that politics works, the way that we should understand sovereignty, power, how you acquire

00:01:17.680 power, how you control a people, both domestically and foreign people. If you invade, how do you

00:01:24.920 control it? What does it mean to come into power in a foreign nation? These are all still very 1.00

00:01:29.940 relevant things that we need to understand. Still lessons that I think are critical for people in the

00:01:34.780 modern day that can even apply to current conflicts that we are currently invested in. So we're going to

00:01:40.920 be continuing this series discussing Machiavelli's thoughts on the use of mercenaries, the arms of

00:01:46.400 others. And are there any benefits to being a wicked ruler? Is that ultimately something that

00:01:51.380 can be a positive for a prince who's come into power? We'll discuss all of that today, guys.

00:01:58.500 But before we do, let's hear about Frontier Magazine. Hey, guys, we all have to read things

00:02:02.100 digitally these days, but I'm old school. Whenever I can, I want to feel the weight of the page in my

00:02:07.520 hand. So when I look at Frontier Magazine, which is always beautifully shot and beautifully laid out and

00:02:12.600 has really interesting articles, that's what I'm looking for. I've written for Frontier. Many of

00:02:17.600 my guests have written for Frontier from this show. And if you want to get access to Frontier Magazine,

00:02:23.560 you need to subscribe to Blaze Unlimited. When you do, you're not just going to get issue five,

00:02:28.240 you're also going to get all the other premium perks, and you're going to get back issues one

00:02:32.500 through four digitally. So you're immediately caught up. If you want to do that, you need to head to

00:02:36.660 blazeunlimited.com slash Oren and use the promo code Frontier40 to get $40 off your subscription.

00:02:43.940 That's blazeunlimited.com slash Oren Frontier40 for that discount.

00:02:50.200 All right, we'll dive here in a second. But just before we get started, I want to remind you,

00:02:54.800 you should be reading books for yourself as well. I appreciate you going along with me in a way this

00:03:00.140 does serve as an audiobook for the prince as we are reading in its entirety because it's a relatively

00:03:05.060 short work. But because it's a short work, you should be able to read it on your own.

00:03:09.580 It's often under 100 pages, depending on your translation and formatting. It's a dense read.

00:03:16.180 It's packed with a lot of wisdom, many layers, but you can read it in a short amount of time.

00:03:21.440 And that's something you should be doing. If you want to challenge yourself, if you want to grow,

00:03:25.640 you need to read the great works on your own. You need to read them slowly and you need to read them

00:03:29.900 repeatedly. The Prince is actually a great book to practice this with because it's so short.

00:03:34.420 You can spend a lot of time in each chapter. You can pull it apart. You can read it multiple times.

00:03:39.640 You can listen to an audiobook. It's usually only like a three to four hour audiobook if you listen

00:03:44.400 to it. And of course, you should be reading along with it, but you can marinate in it. You can pull

00:03:49.880 things out of it you didn't see before. And that's what's going to increase your scholarship. That's

00:03:54.420 what's going to increase your ability to grasp a concept. If you're just reading great works once,

00:03:59.640 you haven't really read them at all. And The Prince is the perfect book. It's not some five,

00:04:04.140 600 page massive tome. It's not the critique of pure reason. It's something that you can get through

00:04:10.060 and even in one sitting, and that will allow you to start to master and understand the text. So again,

00:04:14.860 I appreciate you following along. I appreciate that you enjoy my commentary, my exegesis on this

00:04:21.580 work. But remember, do the reading yourselves as well. Okay, make sure that you're doing that as well.

00:04:27.740 All right, so we're going to pick up in chapter seven, new principalities acquired by arms and the

00:04:33.380 fortune of others. Those who are raised purely by fortune, from being private citizens to being

00:04:40.140 princes, don't have much trouble rising, just floating up. But they find it hard to stay there.

00:04:46.260 I'm referring to men whom a state is given, as happened to many in Greece and the cities of Ionia

00:04:53.540 and the Hellespont, where Darius enthroned princes who were to hold the cities in the interest of his

00:05:00.840 security and his glory, and to be to the men who bought their states, rising to the rank of emperor

00:05:07.600 through corruption of soldiers. So here he's talking about people who did not acquire their

00:05:14.140 principality by their own arms. They were lucky, or they bought their way in, or their fellow citizens

00:05:20.940 put them into place. Now you might say, well, those are all, maybe it's a positive thing that

00:05:25.180 the fellow citizens put you into place. Yes, but ultimately his point is, you did not acquire it

00:05:31.080 through arms. You did not acquire it through direct conflict, which means you're going to have an easy

00:05:35.680 time rising because you didn't have to do much in the way of a battle, but it's going to have other

00:05:40.660 impacts. Such people in category A, especially, depend entirely on two extremely unreliable and

00:05:48.260 unstable things. Namely, the support and the fortune of whoever raised them to the status of prince.

00:05:56.440 Such a man won't have either the knowledge or the power to keep his position. Knowledge, unless he has

00:06:02.020 an extremely high level of ability and virtue, he can't be expected to know how to command, having

00:06:07.340 always lived as an ordinary citizen. Power. He won't have an army that he can rely on to be friendly and

00:06:13.720 loyal. So he says, look, if you're installed by some other foreign power or some other power, if you

00:06:20.880 did not acquire your prince ship under your own arms, you're going to owe it to someone else. And

00:06:27.440 because you don't have a, the ability to command in the field, because you don't have that experience,

00:06:33.040 you just lived your life as a normal citizen, because you have never brought an army to battle,

00:06:38.020 and because you do not have the loyalty of that army or the ability to sway it. That means that at

00:06:43.360 some point, if the guy who installed you loses his, uh, his fortune, then you will as well. And of

00:06:49.820 course we can see this pretty much everywhere, but if we want to take a modern example, let's look at

00:06:54.460 Vladimir Zelensky, right? This is a guy who, uh, was very likely installed. And in fact, we can say

00:07:01.820 pretty much certainly was installed by CIA color revolution in Ukraine. Uh, he has some level of 0.65

00:07:08.840 popular support, but ultimately he did not put himself into power. He does not really own his

00:07:13.880 military in the sense that he did not win some victorious battle with them. Uh, they're highly,

00:07:19.060 uh, funded by the United States and other NATO allies, very dependent. So ultimately, while he has

00:07:25.380 some level of power, he does not have true sovereignty. At the end of the day, if the United States and

00:07:31.380 other NATO nations suddenly withdrew all of their support, Vladimir Zelensky would probably get

00:07:36.700 thrown out. That's why he's not holding elections in his own country right now, because he's not sure

00:07:42.140 he'd be able to win them. So he, he came to power under the arms of someone else under the, you know,

00:07:47.780 someone else bought off the country for him. Someone else is paying for the army. Someone else is making

00:07:52.700 that happen for him. So he's a puppet. And if at any point he loses those support, those support 0.50

00:07:58.920 structures, he will not retain power. So yes, he came into power very easily. He didn't have to do

00:08:04.780 much. He was kind of just swept into power by these forces because he happened to be an actor that

00:08:08.740 people liked, but he could also be displaced just as easily. Statues that come into existence

00:08:15.560 suddenly, like everything in nature that is born and grows fast, can't have roots and connections

00:08:20.940 that will save them from being blown down by the first storm. Unless I repeat the suddenly,

00:08:25.660 the suddenly elevated prince has so much virtue that he knows he must immediately set to work

00:08:31.900 to make sure that his hold on, on what fortune was given to him, laying the foundation that another

00:08:37.920 leader might have laid before becoming a prince rather than afterwards. So again, there is a way

00:08:44.360 if you, if you are incredibly lucky, if someone hands you a state, gifts you a state, you could secure

00:08:50.420 power. If you're incredibly virtuous, if you immediately recognize that you need to build

00:08:55.040 that base of support, right? You could come into a scenario where someone puts you in place

00:09:00.260 and then you are virtuous. You work hard. You recognize that you need to gain this ability.

00:09:05.200 You need to gain this control. You need to raise that level of support inside your country. Then you,

00:09:10.820 you can, there is a way forward for you to gain true sovereignty over it, but you must be extremely

00:09:17.280 virtuous. You basically needed to have everything that would have allowed you to do all that stuff

00:09:22.160 on your own, even though you didn't do it on your own. So it's, it's, it's unlikely,

00:09:27.380 but it's possible. You could have been the kind of guy who could have won a country for yourself,

00:09:31.820 had, you know, but you, but you just didn't have the moment or the time or whatever the resources.

00:09:37.100 And so once you come into power, you do that, but it is less likely because most of the people

00:09:42.760 who are just installed like this do not have that virtue, do not have that fortitude.

00:09:47.660 I will illustrate these, uh, these two ways of becoming a prince through virtue and through

00:09:53.220 fortune by considering two examples from our own times, uh, namely Francisco Siorgia and, uh,

00:10:00.160 Cesare Borgia by choosing the appropriate means. And with great virtue, Siorgia was, uh, went from

00:10:06.980 being a commoner to being Duke of Milan. And he, and he hadn't much trouble holding onto the power

00:10:13.540 that it had, that it had cost him so much effort to get it to get in the first place.

00:10:18.940 In contrast with Cesar Borgia commonly called Duke Valentino acquiring his state through fortune of

00:10:25.360 his father, Pope Alexander. And when his father died, he lost it despite having taken every measure

00:10:31.800 that a wise and virtuous man should have, uh, uh, should take to give himself a firm, uh, foundation

00:10:38.980 in the state that the army and fortune of someone else had given them. So he contrasts these two

00:10:44.560 leaders. He says that Siorgia, he, uh, he went in and even though no one handed him this, it was,

00:10:51.560 it took him a great amount of effort to control it. Once he had it, he was unlikely to use it.

00:10:56.820 And then he can contrast it with Cesar Borgia and says, this is someone who's handed this power due to

00:11:02.600 his father's station. And even though he was in many ways virtuous, at least that's how that was,

00:11:10.340 uh, you know, described here, uh, he was not able to hold it. He did because he did not have

00:11:16.020 those foundations that he needed when his father died. Someone who didn't lay the, his foundation

00:11:21.800 before achieving power may be able with great virtue to lay them afterwards, but this will involve

00:11:27.700 trouble for the architect and danger to the builder or danger to the building. If we look carefully at

00:11:35.400 everything Borgia did, we'll see that he did lay solid foundations for his future power. And I think

00:11:41.260 it's worthwhile to discuss his efforts because I don't know any better advice to give a new prince

00:11:46.900 than follow the example of Cesar Borgia. His, uh, his arrangements failed, but that wasn't because

00:11:52.400 of any fault in him, but because of the extraordinary extreme hostility of fortune.

00:11:57.700 So a lot of times in the prince, Machiavelli acknowledges the role of fortune, but really

00:12:04.200 encourages the prince to make fortune his own to say, yes, fortune is a big problem. Like ultimately

00:12:11.680 fate is, you know, kind of makes its own decisions. We have to factor fate into our calculus and our

00:12:18.300 analysis. However, whenever possible, you should take control of your fate. Fortune favors the bold,

00:12:24.360 right? That's really a lot of what, uh, Machiavelli is talking about. And he says, you know, Cesar Borgia,

00:12:30.980 he did take many of these actions, even though fate gave him this, right? His father's position gave him

00:12:38.340 this power. He did take many of these actions. And even though he took many of the actions that I,

00:12:44.440 Machiavelli would suggest, even after that, he still lost it because fortune did not favor him.

00:12:50.660 Now there's a lot of speculation. Many times, especially guys like Leo Strauss will say that

00:12:55.280 Machiavelli speaking on two levels. He will often kind of throw shade at people. So is, is Machiavelli

00:13:01.640 saying, oh, well, Cesar Borgia really did everything that he could, or is he kind of saying, well,

00:13:08.000 Borgia did not do enough to control fate. Is he kind of being diplomatic, but backhanded saying,

00:13:13.880 yeah, I see Borgia doing, you know, powerful things, but ultimately, uh, I don't think that

00:13:19.680 he did enough. Or is he saying, no, legitimately, he did do everything he possibly could. And fortune

00:13:24.900 still kind of outmatched him. These are always kind of the, the subtext that are happening below

00:13:29.720 the prints, even though it's only a short document. Uh, oftentimes there are, there are subtle letters

00:13:35.100 that are being laid out by Machiavelli or people will speculate that they are. You can, uh, go into a lot

00:13:40.500 of scholarship to, to kind of read between the lines, if you'd like. Alexander VI, uh, wanting to

00:13:47.000 achieve greatness for the Duke, his son faced many obstacles, present and future. Firstly, he didn't

00:13:53.020 see how he could make him master of any state that wasn't part of the church's territory. And he knew

00:13:59.520 that if he stole land from the church, the Duke of Milan and the Venetians wouldn't consent to that.

00:14:05.460 Furthermore, he saw that the mercenary armies in Italy, especially those that might've helped him

00:14:11.080 were in the hands of rulers who had reason to fear his growing power, namely the Orsini and the, uh,

00:14:17.060 Colinesia, sorry, uh, Colinesia. Sorry, I'm going to mispronounce some Italian here, clans and their

00:14:24.700 allies. Uh, what we had to do then was to upset, uh, the state of affairs and create turmoil in the, uh,

00:14:32.360 states of these rivals. So as to get away with season control, uh, of a part of them, this was

00:14:38.700 easy for him to do because he found that the Venetians for reasons of their own were planning

00:14:43.460 to bring the French back into Italy. And the Pope far from opposing, this made it easier to bring 0.86

00:14:49.040 about by dissolving the former marriage of King Louis. So if you've been following this series so

00:14:54.400 far, you've noticed that many times Machiavelli has talked about bringing other powers in utilizing

00:15:00.820 other powers, wedging apart different factions. This is classic. Again, we can see this throughout

00:15:05.780 history. This is how the Romans conquered. This is how Alexander the great conquered.

00:15:10.240 There's a reason that divide and conquer is a classic strategy. And so he says, look, you know,

00:15:15.460 the, the Pope knew that ultimately he was going to have trouble, uh, dealing with these different

00:15:19.940 Italian cities. So he looked to exploit these differences, these divisions, these conflicts

00:15:24.780 so that he could leverage them in ways that are advantageous to himself. So the French came 0.99

00:15:29.280 into Italy with Venetian help and the Pope's consent. No sooner was the King in possession

00:15:35.560 of Milan than he supplied, than he supplied the Pope with soldiers for the attempt on Romania,

00:15:40.700 which yielded to him because he had the support of the King. The Pope's son, Caesar Borgia,

00:15:46.620 Duke Valentino, uh, was commander of the Pope's army. The Duke having acquired Romania and beaten

00:15:53.180 the, uh, Colonia family wanted to hold onto that and to advance further, but he was hindered by two

00:16:00.460 things. His suspicion that the army wasn't loyal to him and his, and his worries of the Orsini family,

00:16:06.600 which he was using, uh, which he was using would stop obeying his orders and not only block him

00:16:12.800 from winning more territory, but even take for themselves what he had already won. And his fears

00:16:19.300 about the French King were pretty much the same. So he's saying, look, Borgia, Caesar Borgia was not

00:16:24.500 confident in the loyalty of his troops and the other forces he had behind them because they weren't

00:16:30.160 really his personal troops. They were things that they were, they were powers, uh, that were given

00:16:35.520 to him from his position. His father had handed them down to him, those alliances. That was really the

00:16:41.720 source of it. He didn't feel like he had that rooted control and understanding, and that made him

00:16:46.800 hesitant in certain areas. His doubts about the Orsini soldiers were confirmed when the, uh,

00:16:53.280 Fenza had been taken. He saw how half-heartedly they went into the attack on Bologna and he learned

00:17:00.660 which way King Louis, uh, was leaning when he, Caesar Borgia, went on from taking the duchy of Urbino

00:17:08.460 to attack Tuscany. And the king made him turn back. This led him to a decision to, uh, never again rely

00:17:15.920 on the arms and fortune of anyone else. So this again is so important to Machiavelli across

00:17:21.560 everything he writes. Okay. If you read his art of war, if you read his, uh, commentaries on, uh,

00:17:27.620 on history, his, uh, discourses on livery, if you read the prince over and over again, he emphasizes

00:17:33.160 the importance of controlling your own arms. He hates mercenaries. He hates the idea of, uh, powers that

00:17:40.200 you did not personally come to or win out of respect or victory. He's always wary of this idea

00:17:46.660 of not controlling the source of power. Machiavelli understands that ultimately, stop me if you've

00:17:52.760 heard this one, you know, force is violence and violence is the authority from which all other

00:17:59.380 authorities derive. So if you don't control the violence, if you don't control the force, if you

00:18:03.880 don't have a iron grip on this, ultimately you will not be, uh, strong. You will not be confident.

00:18:11.540 You will not feel like you can ultimately take the steps, the decisive steps that you need to.

00:18:17.140 He began by weakening the Orsini and the Colonna factions in Rome by winning over, uh, to his side,

00:18:23.680 all of their supporters, uh, who were gentlemen, making them his gentlemen. For those who are not

00:18:29.420 familiar, this is what people would generally call aristocrats. When you, when you, uh, you know,

00:18:33.960 that that's another name, uh, the gentlemen are kind of the aristocratic class paying them well

00:18:38.480 and giving them military commands or governmental positions, each according to his rank within a few

00:18:43.860 months, they were all cut off from their former factions and entirely attached to the Duke. So he sees

00:18:50.200 these aristocrats and he says, I can give you military rank. I can give you wealth. I can give you

00:18:54.760 governmental positions. And by doing so he can make them his man. He can have a real control.

00:19:01.220 They are going to be subject to him. It's that patronage is going to tie them to him. In this way,

00:19:07.780 he scattered the Colonna family's adherents. And when he waited, uh, for an opportunity to crush the

00:19:13.320 Orsini, this came to him soon and he used it. Well, the Orsini had at least come to realize that the

00:19:19.820 growing power of the Duke and the church would be their ruin. So they came together by, uh, by a

00:19:25.760 planned, uh, planning meeting at, uh, Marron near Paraguay. Sorry, just don't, don't have those

00:19:32.860 pronunciations down. This gave rise to a rebellion at Urbino and the riots in Romania and with endless

00:19:39.080 dangers of the Duke, all of which, uh, he overcame with the help of the French having restored his

00:19:44.820 credibility and not wanting to rely on the French or any other outside forces to preserve it. He

00:19:50.260 resorted to trickery. He was so good at concealing his intentions that he got the Orsini to be willing

00:19:56.620 to reconcile with him. His immediate, his intermediary in this process was Paolo Orsini, whom, uh, the Duke

00:20:04.960 reassured with all the sorts of courtesy, money, clothes, and horses. The Orsini were so naive that when, 0.95

00:20:12.100 that they went at his invitation to Senegalia, uh, where they were in his power by exterminating the 0.89

00:20:19.720 Orsini leaders and, and making allies of their supporters, the Duke laid, uh, solid foundations,

00:20:25.340 uh, for his power, having all the Romania and the Duchy of Urbino in his grip. And he, and he won

00:20:32.180 in the support of the people, uh, uh, who, uh, who were beginning to appreciate the prosperity brought

00:20:37.840 to them by his rule. So he's going through these steps. Okay. He secures, uh, parts of the nobility.

00:20:44.800 He makes sure to cut off, uh, access, uh, to other, uh, sources of power. So those people are

00:20:51.440 entirely reliant on them. He starts to gain the favor of the people by showing the level of prosperity

00:20:57.480 that they're going to gain under his rule. So it's this constant need to kind of uproot the current

00:21:04.340 paradigm, that current ruling class, cut off their connections and make everyone kind of dependent 0.99

00:21:10.820 on him. Let the people know that they're relying on him for their prosperity. Let the nobles know

00:21:15.740 that they're relying on him for the power, their wealth, their position. This is a classic,

00:21:20.660 classic move, right? It's high and low versus that middle. He's using the aristocratic class

00:21:28.200 and the average people to get unseat all of the other possible, uh, uh, people he would have to

00:21:35.100 compete with for power in that area. I want to spend a bit longer on this last matter because it

00:21:43.080 is, uh, because it is important and derives and deserves to be, uh, imitated by others. When the

00:21:49.780 duke occupied Romania, he found it under the rule of a weak master who preferred robbing their subjects 0.99

00:21:55.860 to governing them and gave them, uh, more cause for dissension than for unity with the result of

00:22:02.560 that territory was full of robbery, feuds, and every kind of lawlessness. So here Machiavelli is

00:22:07.780 saying, look, there's a consequence to bad rule. Now Machiavelli will tell you a lot of things about

00:22:13.120 how to keep power, but people will also then assume that Machiavelli is just only says, oh,

00:22:18.900 princes can just do whatever they want. Rulers can do whatever they want. They don't have to worry

00:22:22.780 about the consequences. They don't really have to worry about the people. It's just all top down

00:22:27.620 monarchical authoritarian, uh, authoritarian power. And the answer is no, he doesn't believe that he

00:22:33.640 says, actually, you still have to rule in a certain way. Even if you come to power through some of these

00:22:38.520 more Machiavellian means, the way you treat your people, the resources you provide to them, the results

00:22:45.000 that you produce through your rule, they matter. So if you're just this, uh, you know, mercenary king,

00:22:50.760 who's out there, this tyrant, who's just doing whatever he wants, taking whatever he wants,

00:22:54.760 treating people badly, not caring about the outcome for your people, guess what? They're

00:22:58.880 going to be easy to pick off. You're going to be easy to unseat. You're not going to be popular.

00:23:02.760 You're not going to have basis of support. And you're going to have a guy who can come in

00:23:06.360 and rip away those different forces that define your control of the area.

00:23:12.300 One thing to restore peace and obedience to authority. The Duke thought he had to give it,

00:23:17.580 some good government. And to that end, he gave complete control to Romeo de Orca, a man who

00:23:23.860 always acted decisively and ruthlessly. It didn't take long for this man to restore peace and unity,

00:23:30.500 getting a considerable reputation for himself. But the Duke came to think that extreme severity was

00:23:36.420 going to make him hated by the populace. So he set up a single court of judgment for the whole of

00:23:42.100 Romania, a court that was most excellent, the court with a most excellent presiding judge to which all

00:23:50.000 the cities could send their advocates. He knew that de Orca severity had caused some hatred against

00:23:57.580 himself and wanted to clear that out from the minds of the people and win them over to himself.

00:24:03.120 So he set up to show that if there had been any cruelty, its source was not him, but rather the

00:24:10.860 brutal nature of his minister. At his first opportunity, he had de Orca arrested and cut in two,

00:24:17.220 leaving the pieces in the plaza of Censa with the block and bloody knife beside it. The brutal

00:24:24.400 spectacle gave the people a jolt, but also reassured them. So he sends this minister to go in,

00:24:30.860 the prince, Borgia, he's not going in himself. He sends the minister to lay down the law. He says,

00:24:37.520 okay, we know this place has been lawless. It's been taken advantage of, and it works. It gets rid

00:24:42.700 of the robbery. It restores order. However, that crackdown on the people, it's not necessarily

00:24:49.060 popular, at least that part of it, right? They're glad that things are better. They're glad that the

00:24:53.560 crime has gone down. They're glad that conditions have generally improved, but they don't like that

00:24:58.600 crackdown that's coming. And you see Borgia start to worry. And he says, okay, if they think I'm being

00:25:03.840 cruel, if they think that I'm being overbearing, that could be a problem. So the first thing he does,

00:25:09.160 he says, sets up a court where everyone can go. So rather than having this strict minister who's

00:25:14.000 going around and applying kind of this king's justice, this prince's justice everywhere,

00:25:19.160 he has this court that people can go to as an alternative. And then he also executes the minister

00:25:25.800 who had been harsh. Now, the minister is probably just doing what he was told, right? In fact, he was

00:25:30.040 probably selected for his ability to apply exactly this. But Borgia says, I'm going to go ahead and

00:25:34.740 sacrifice this guy because the people associate him with the crackdown. And so this is something

00:25:40.300 that a king can do. This is something a prince can do. He can send a minister, can send someone else

00:25:45.520 to do his dirty work for him, and then put distance between himself and the guy who actually did the

00:25:50.520 work and say, oh, no, it was this minister who actually did it. Now, we could see this with a

00:25:55.860 presidency, right? Presidents do this all the time. They're technically leading, but they assign

00:26:01.380 different cabinet ministers, vice presidents, other people to do unpopular jobs, ones that they don't

00:26:07.020 want to do. Kristi Noem famously was just the head of the DHS. And when things didn't go as well as 0.97

00:26:14.420 Donald Trump wanted in Minnesota after a crackdown, well, she might be out of a job. She might find 0.75

00:26:19.240 yourself out of a job because maybe that was more her fault. Maybe she was the one who was

00:26:23.680 ultimately responsible. Again, this is a tactic not just used by Trump, Biden, Obama, any president

00:26:30.340 you could think of, you could probably think of some level of example of this. So this is a common

00:26:35.700 tactic we see over and over again. It's just as applicable today, even though we don't call them

00:26:39.960 ministers and princes. We call them cabinet secretaries and presidents. We can see this dynamic.

00:26:46.740 Now, back to my main theme. Borgia had acquired an army of his own and had pretty much destroyed

00:26:53.760 the armies in his vicinity that could make trouble for him so that now his power was consolidated and

00:27:01.340 he was fairly well secured against immediate danger. And when he saw that if he wanted to

00:27:07.380 conquer more territories, he needed the support of the King of France, which he knew he couldn't get

00:27:12.420 because the King had belatedly come to realize there was a mistake to ally himself with Caesar

00:27:17.140 Borgia. So he began to seek new alliances and to hang back from helping France against the Spaniards 0.91

00:27:23.900 in the French attempt to conquer the kingdom of Naples. His intention was to make himself secure

00:27:28.520 against the French and he could quickly have brought this off if his father, Pope Alexander,

00:27:36.540 hadn't died a few months later. So Borgia starts to gain his own army. He starts to gain his own

00:27:42.800 confidence. He starts to consolidate his power, but he recognizes that he would still need the King of

00:27:47.800 France to come in. Louis would still have to come in and do a lot if he wants to achieve some of his

00:27:53.400 goals. Recognizing that France is going to back out of this is probably second guessing its alliance.

00:28:00.140 He recognizes that he should probably stall out and not help in some of these actions because

00:28:05.260 he's not going to receive everything he needs. It's better to rely on his own army now that he's

00:28:09.800 acquired one in his own ability than to chance himself with an alliance that he may not fully

00:28:14.360 be in control of. That's how Borgia handled his immediate problems. For the longer term, he had to

00:28:21.660 prepare for the possibility that Alexander VI might be succeeded by a Pope who wasn't friendly to him and

00:28:28.160 might try to take back from him the territory that Alexander had given him. For this purpose, he made

00:28:33.900 four plans. One, to exterminate the families of the lords he had disposed so as to deprive the Pope

00:28:41.940 of that excuse for interfering. Remember, this is a classic Machiavelli move. When you take over,

00:28:48.200 kill everybody who could legitimately hold power. Just get rid of them. The whole monarchy, the whole 1.00

00:28:53.820 family, the whole line, all the way down to the children. Again, this is brutal, but this is what

00:28:59.120 Machiavelli believed and what he preached and why he's infamous. Take them all out. And he's praising

00:29:03.520 Caesar Borgia. Get in there, wipe out everybody. So if a new Pope comes in and decides, I don't know

00:29:09.320 if I like that the old Pope gave his son this territory, I'll just give it back to the nobles

00:29:15.580 in the area. There won't be any. There won't be anyone to hand it over to. And that's critical.

00:29:20.240 That kind of removes those cards from the hand of the Pope. It's one less liability he has to worry

00:29:26.280 about. Two, to win the gentlemen, again, the nobles, the aristocrats, of Rome over to his side

00:29:33.640 so as to have their help in hemming the Pope in. Three, to increase his control over the College

00:29:39.280 of Cardinals, which would elect the Pope. And four, to acquire as much territory as he could

00:29:44.080 while Pope Alexander was alive so as to be well-placed to resist with his own resources at any

00:29:50.040 attack by the new Pope. So Borgia recognizes his vulnerability, right? He's giving a class on

00:29:57.160 if you didn't come to power under your own arms, under your own sway, what should you be doing?

00:30:02.400 Well, win the army for yourself. Show the people that they're living better under you. Eliminate

00:30:07.200 all the competition. Make sure that you can control, hopefully, who's going to be the next Pope

00:30:12.740 since your power came from the Pope. Make sure to hedge your bets by getting all of the control of

00:30:18.020 the different nobles in the area so that they're going to assist you. They're not going to side

00:30:21.700 with the Pope over you and get as much territory as you can. So if the next Pope is not as kind to

00:30:28.500 you, if he doesn't love you as much as your father, you will ultimately be too ensconced to be easily

00:30:33.840 removed. Politicians, whether they be part of the church or they be just entirely temporal, will go

00:30:41.360 down paths of least resistance. The more ensconced you are, the harder you are to en route, the more you

00:30:47.120 control your own area and aren't dependent on others, the less likely they are to come after you.

00:30:55.000 By the time Alexander died, the Duke had managed three of the four. He had killed as many of the

00:31:00.180 dispossessed lords as he could lay hands on, which was most of them, won over the Roman gentlemen, and

00:31:06.100 brought onto his side a large majority of the College of Cardinals. As for number four, further

00:31:11.700 conquest, he planned to become master of Tuscany. Thus, he had already held Parraga and Pio Bino,

00:31:20.400 probably, and Pisa was under his protection. He no longer had to fear anything from the French

00:31:26.080 directly because the Spaniards had robbed the French of the kingdom of Naples, so both sides had

00:31:31.300 to buy his support. So he felt free to pronounce, to pounce down on Pisa. When he was done with that,

00:31:39.080 Luca and Siena would immediately capitulate, partly out of fear and partly out of hostility to the

00:31:45.780 Florentines, and the Florentines couldn't have done anything about it. If Caesar Borgia had achieved

00:31:52.780 all of this, and he was almost there when Alexander died, he could have acquired so much power and

00:31:58.360 prestige that he could have stood on his own feet, relying solely on his own power and virtue and not

00:32:05.080 on the military power and fortune of anyone else.

00:32:12.260 So again, Machiavelli is showing you, even if you come to power in this way, here's the roadmap,

00:32:18.860 and here's all the things Borgia tried to do. And he was checking off, he's running down the list,

00:32:23.500 he's going through Machiavelli's strategy and getting a good scorecard, but he doesn't quite

00:32:29.160 acquire all the things he needs. He doesn't quite acquire all the things that he needs to control

00:32:35.220 this area, to beat, you know, his virtue is, could have been sufficient enough to overpower fortune had

00:32:43.160 he been given just a little more time. But Alexander did die, a mere five years before his son had first

00:32:49.760 drawn the sword. The Duke's condition at this time was this. He had a firm control of Romagna,

00:32:55.280 he had other planned conquests, uh, uh, were up in the air. He was caught between two powerful

00:33:01.340 hostile armies. He was mortally ill, but the Duke had so much ferocity and virtue and understood so

00:33:08.620 well that men must be either won over or killed and had in the short time available laid such firm

00:33:16.220 foundations that he had, uh, surmounted every obstacle. If the French and Spanish armies hadn't been

00:33:21.900 bearing down on him or if he had been in good health, it's clear that the foundations he had

00:33:26.780 laid were indeed solid for the Romagna waited for him for more than a month. And he, and he was safe

00:33:33.320 in Rome, although half dead, the Baglioni and Vitelli and Orsini factions came to Rome, but couldn't

00:33:42.040 stir things up against him. And if he had been in good health, when his father died, he could have

00:33:46.860 managed everything easily. For example, he, uh, couldn't have, he couldn't have dictated who would

00:33:52.900 be next for Pope, but he could have blocked the election of any other candidate he didn't want.

00:33:57.940 On that day, uh, on the day that Julius II was elected Pope, the Duke himself told me that he

00:34:05.220 thought of all the problems that might occur when his father died and had solutions for all of them,

00:34:09.860 except that it hadn't occurred to him when his father died, he himself would be on death's door.

00:34:15.060 So yeah, kind of a problem, right? Like you, you couldn't seal the deal. You didn't have quite

00:34:19.300 enough time. You had a plan on how to manage everything. Once the guy you were dependent on,

00:34:23.400 the Pope, your father died. However, if you yourself are also dying, if you yourself are also

00:34:28.660 gravely ill and you've kind of made everything hinge on your ability, your central ability to lead

00:34:34.160 this coalition, then you suddenly not being able to lead, not being able to be in that position

00:34:38.940 is going to be a mortal blow to your efforts. You're not going to have enough time.

00:34:42.420 Having set out all the Duke's actions, I can find, uh, I can't find anything to criticize.

00:34:48.480 Indeed. He seems to me, I repeat to be a model for anyone who comes to power through fortune and

00:34:53.720 with help from the arms of others, a model, although he failed. Yes, because his great courage and high

00:34:59.880 ambition couldn't have allowed him or wouldn't have allowed him to act differently from how he did.

00:35:04.980 And he failed only because his father's life was so short and he himself was ill.

00:35:09.080 So a new ruler who thinks, uh, thinks he has to secure himself to his new principality,

00:35:14.920 win friends, overcome obstacles, either by force or fraud, make himself loved and feared by the

00:35:20.680 people, be followed and respected by his soldiers, exterminate potential enemies who replace old 0.97

00:35:27.040 laws with new ones, be severe and gracious, magnanimous and liberal, break up a disloyal army and create a

00:35:34.920 new one, maintain friendships with Kings and princes so that they must openly help him or be very careful

00:35:41.540 about harming him. Can't find a livelier example than the actions of this man. The only thing we,

00:35:48.400 he could be criticized for is the election of Julius the second as Pope, a bad choice. As I've already

00:35:54.320 said, the Duke wasn't in a position to decide who would be the new Pope. We could have blocked the

00:35:59.640 election of anyone who didn't, he didn't want. And he ought to have never allowed the election of any

00:36:04.620 Cardinal whom he had injured or who has Pope would have reason to fear him. Men harm one another either

00:36:12.100 from fear or from hatred. The Cardinal had harmed the Cardinals. He had harmed included among others,

00:36:18.840 the Cardinal of San Pietro in, uh, Valencia, the Cardinal of San Gregoria in a Senado Sforza.

00:36:26.640 And each of the other Cardinals had reason to fear him. If he, the, uh, if he, the Cardinal became

00:36:32.460 Pope, except for the Cardinal of Ruan and the Spanish Cardinals. Machia Lavelli gives reasons for

00:36:38.640 these exceptions. Exceptions. Sorry, I read the parentheses there. Uh, then, so the Duke's first

00:36:46.200 choice for Pope should have been one of the Spanish Cardinals, uh, failing which Cardinal of Ruan and not

00:36:52.340 the Cardinal of San Pietro or, uh, at Valencia. Anyone who thinks the, uh, thinks the new benefits

00:36:59.100 will cause great men to forget old injuries is wrong. Borgia miscalculated in his papal election

00:37:04.680 and the heir was fatal. So again, along with, uh, owning your own arms, not using mercenaries,

00:37:13.000 not being given arms, having your own command, your own ability to lead in battle. Machiavelli's other big

00:37:18.760 point. You just see over and over and over again is injury. Be aware of the cost of injuring people

00:37:25.640 only do it when you have to. If you do it, do it thoroughly and swiftly do it to people who cannot

00:37:31.420 retaliate and never lie to yourself about the consequences of that injury. People who have

00:37:37.860 been injured will not forget it just because you did something nice for them. Men are jealous and petty

00:37:44.680 and vindictal. They, they seek vengeance no matter how much you have done for them, no matter how much

00:37:50.680 you have benefited them. If you have war, if you have wounded them, they're coming for you.

00:37:56.980 Modern example, Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz famously had his wife insulted to his face by Donald Trump.

00:38:05.640 Now for many men, that would be kind of the end of anything to do with Donald Trump. Say whatever you

00:38:10.860 want about Thomas Massey, uh, the fact that Donald Trump has insulted his wife, I think has made a

00:38:15.300 very permanent mark on Thomas Massey. Now Ted Cruz was willing to kind of knuckle under and get behind

00:38:23.200 Trump when it became apparent that Trump ultimately was going to be the leader of the GOP. However,

00:38:31.200 Ted Cruz doesn't want Donald Trump to continue to be a leader of GOP. He still hates Donald Trump.

00:38:36.300 Todd, don't fool yourself. Ted Cruz has never, never forgotten the injury done to him by Donald

00:38:42.180 Trump. And so Ted Cruz right now is attempting to rip apart the Republican coalition because he

00:38:47.580 doesn't want JD Vance or the MAGA movement to be the successor to Donald Trump. So even though

00:38:53.800 Trump has probably benefited Cruz much more than he insulted him at some point, Ted Cruz will never

00:39:00.880 forget that. And he will always be opposed to Donald Trump and Donald Trump's movement and Donald

00:39:06.220 Trump's successor. So remember just because someone turns around and says, Oh, well, you know, Donald,

00:39:12.380 I love you now. And you've done so much for me. No, no, no. Machiavelli would tell you if you've

00:39:17.860 injured that person, don't trust them. Don't give them a chance to seek their revenge. Don't give them

00:39:22.420 an opportunity to come back. If you're going to wound someone, push them out permanently, make sure they

00:39:27.180 never have power again, because if you allow it, no matter how good you are to them, no matter how much

00:39:32.020 they benefit from your rule, they will remember you. Chapter eight, principalities obtained through

00:39:39.820 wickedness. Of the ways in which a private person can rise to a prince, there are two ways that aren't

00:39:46.140 entirely matters of fortune or virtue. I can't pass through them in silence, though I shan't deal with

00:39:53.200 them as fully as I would in a book about other about republics, which remember, he has a book about

00:39:58.440 republics, discourses on Livy, little bit harder, definitely longer. I'll probably start, I'll

00:40:04.740 probably when I get done with this series, at some point, I'll pull some excerpts, because I don't

00:40:08.660 think we can go through that entire book. But, but remember, the prince is his book on monarchies,

00:40:14.500 but he was not strictly a monarchist. Machiavelli ultimately did prefer republics and wrote about why.

00:40:21.220 They are these, someone raises himself to being, to being a prince through some really wicked conduct.

00:40:27.000 This will be the topic of the present chapter. Or, a citizen becomes the prince of his country by the

00:40:32.820 support of his fellow citizens. I'll discuss this in chapter nine. So we're going to get the two

00:40:36.680 chapters. This one is on the guy who gets powered through complete wickedness, and the other one is

00:40:42.380 someone who's raised to be a leader by his own people, not through his own force of arms.

00:40:47.300 My treatment of this first, of the first of these, will consist in presenting two examples,

00:40:52.520 one ancient and the other modern, without going into the merits of such a procedure.

00:40:57.000 The two examples, I think, will provide enough instruction for anyone who has to go that way.

00:41:03.460 One, Agathocles was a Sicilian who started not merely as an extraordinary or an ordinary citizen,

00:41:10.220 but as a very low class one. His father was a potter, and he became king of Syracuse. He was a scoundrel

00:41:16.660 from the day he was born, but he accomplished his infamies with so much virtue of mind and body.

00:41:23.140 Remember, this is Machiavelli using virtue in an interesting way, right? When we think of

00:41:28.780 Christian virtue, we think of following the word of God, being pious. But for Machiavelli,

00:41:36.260 virtue is simply excellence. And we know that Machiavelli is not always on board with the

00:41:41.880 Christian understanding of morality. So in this case, is he arguing against Christian virtue? Is he

00:41:48.400 setting up an alternative virtue? Perhaps a more ancient virtue? I mean, this is his ancient

00:41:54.400 example, right? So maybe that's what's happening here. An interesting thing to observe as we continue

00:42:01.000 to read. Having joined the Syracusan army, he rose through its ranks to be commander in chief.

00:42:05.860 Being established in that position, he decided to become Syracuse's prince and to use force,

00:42:11.100 with no help from anyone else, to hold on to the power that had been given to him and to upgrade it to

00:42:17.120 the power of a prince. He discussed his plans with Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, whose army was at this

00:42:24.080 time fighting in Sicily. Then one morning, he assembled the people and the Senate of Syracuse,

00:42:30.680 as if he had public affairs to discuss with them. And in an agreed signal, his soldiers killed all of

00:42:37.620 the senators and the richest people. And with this out of the way, Agathocles seized and held the

00:42:47.120 principality of the city without any trouble from the people. Although the Carthaginians routed him

00:42:52.480 twice and eventually laid siege to Syracuse, he was able to not only defend his city, but also to take

00:42:58.560 some of his men to attack Africa. And before long, the siege of Syracuse was lifted and the Carthaginians

00:43:04.740 at the end of their tether were compelled to come to terms with Agathocles, leaving Sicily to him

00:43:11.660 and settling for the possession of Africa. So he uses this wickedness, he uses this trickery to take 0.73

00:43:19.760 powers, to declare himself prince. Then he uses subterfuge to gather all of the aristocrats, all

00:43:28.000 of the men who would have maybe alternative power structures, the ability to push back. He gathers them

00:43:33.340 together under the idea that they're going to be having some kind of important discussion, and he 0.99

00:43:36.840 has them all killed. Obviously a terrible thing. But the people without any elite class to push back, 0.98

00:43:43.320 any natural leaders, find themselves unable. So this is, once again, Machiavelli is a purveyor at the

00:43:50.640 beginning of what we call elite theory. Because Machiavelli recognizes you do have to care about

00:43:55.180 what the people think, right? We've already seen that. It does matter if you treat the people

00:43:59.340 entirely poorly, you can make yourself very vulnerable, right? So he's not just saying there

00:44:04.080 is no importance to what the people think or how they're feeling about your actions. However,

00:44:10.200 ultimately, people need to be led. And without a leadership class, without some aristocrat,

00:44:15.200 some guy with money and power and connections and weight, they can't find a way to push back.

00:44:22.320 And ultimately, the Carthaginians who were responsible for him kind of rising to power

00:44:27.740 by being this alternative power structure, they come in, they try to impose some kind of cost on

00:44:32.960 him, but they can't do it, ultimately. And he does, you know, even though he takes some serious blows,

00:44:37.840 he ultimately succeeds in kind of holding on to this power for a while.

00:44:40.940 Every family tree holds extraordinary stories, especially those of the women who shaped who we

00:44:47.520 are. In honor of International Women's Month, Ancestry invites you to shine a light on their

00:44:52.640 legacy. Until March 10th, enjoy free access to over 4 billion family history records and discover where

00:44:59.300 they lived, the journeys they took, and the legacy they left behind. Start with just a name or place

00:45:05.060 and let our intuitive tools guide you. Visit Ancestry.ca to start today. No credit card required.

00:45:10.640 Term Supply. If you study the actions of the career of this man, you'll find little, if anything,

00:45:16.480 that could be attributed to fortune. He became a prince, as we have just seen, not through anyone's

00:45:21.440 favor, but by steadily rising in the military profession, each promotion involving countless

00:45:26.400 difficulties and dangers. And once he had the principality, he held onto it boldly through many

00:45:31.700 hostilities and dangers. And you won't see anything you could attribute to virtue either,

00:45:37.980 for it can't be called virtue to kill one's fellow citizens to deceive friends or to be without

00:45:44.000 faith or mercy or religion. Such methods may bring power, but they won't bring glory.

00:45:49.160 So, an interesting thing to look at, right? Like, ultimately, are we talking about someone that

00:45:58.720 Machiavelli admires? Because he says, look, there's no fortune involved in this. This guy did it all

00:46:03.640 himself, right? He did it all himself. He's the one who made these risks. He's the one who became a

00:46:09.940 commander. He's the one who set all this in motion. And even though he secured the power,

00:46:14.980 he did do so these, like, considered dishonorable means. So, again, now he says,

00:46:20.320 maybe it's not virtuous, right? And if you do this, you won't have glory when you acquire the power.

00:46:25.120 So, again, we're seeing the effectiveness here, but is he advocating for it? Or is he just noting,

00:46:30.260 you know, through objective observation that this is something that did work?

00:46:36.080 Because if we consider Agathocles' virtue in confronting and surviving dangers and his courage

00:46:44.700 in enduring and overcoming hardships, there is no apparent reason for judging him to be inferior to

00:46:51.560 the most successful military leaders. Then there's no, but his barbarous cruelty and inhumanity

00:47:00.060 with infinite wickedness do not permit me to celebrate, permit him to be celebrated among the

00:47:07.280 most excellent men. And therefore, it isn't right to count his striking attributes as virtue. So summing

00:47:13.560 up, what he achieved can be attributed to either fortune or virtue. In other times during the papacy of

00:47:19.860 Alexander VI, Olivretto de Fermo, having been left an orphan many years before, was brought up by his

00:47:29.900 maternal uncle Giovanni Faglina. And when still quite young, he was sent to serve as a soldier under

00:47:38.060 Paolo Vitelli, so that he could get some training that would enable him to have a successful military

00:47:45.460 career. After Paolo died, he served under Paolo's brother, Vitellozo. Before long, his resourcefulness and

00:47:55.860 strength of body and mind made him Vitellozo's top officer. But he had no enthusiasm for serving among

00:48:04.980 others, and therefore, under someone else's command, so decided to seize Fermo with Vitellozo's support and

00:48:12.180 help from some citizens of Fermo, to whom the slavery of their country was dearer than its freedom. He wrote

00:48:19.800 to his uncle Giovanni Faglino to the following effect. Having been away from home for so many

00:48:26.200 years, he wanted to visit his uncle and his city to have a look at the land his father had given him.

00:48:31.480 He hadn't worked to acquire anything except honor, and so he couldn't return home with an ostentatious

00:48:37.520 display of wealth. But he wanted to return home in style, so that the citizens would see that he hadn't

00:48:43.160 been wasting his time in the military. So he would be accompanied by a hundred of his friends and

00:48:52.420 servants, all on horseback, and ask Giovanni to have the Ferminas receive him with a suitable ceremony

00:49:00.160 to honor not only himself, but also his uncle and guardian Giovanni. Giovanni ensured that his nephew

00:49:06.460 would receive every courtesy. He caused him to be ceremoniously received by the Ferminans,

00:49:12.140 and lodged with him in his home. After some days there, making the needed arrangements for his

00:49:20.740 wicked plan, Oliverto laid on a grand banquet to which he invited Giovanni Fagliani and the top men

00:49:29.600 of Fermo. When the eating was over and all the other entertainments that were usually in such

00:49:34.980 banquets were finished, Oliverto cunningly began some solemn talk with the greatness of Pope Alexander

00:49:41.980 and his son, Cesare, and their enterprises. Giovanni and others joined in the conversation.

00:49:49.000 But Oliverto suddenly stood up and said that such matters should be discussed in a more private

00:49:54.360 place. And he went into another room with Giovanni and the other citizens following him. No sooner were

00:50:00.080 they seated than soldiers emerged from hiding places and slaughtered them all, Giovanni included.

00:50:05.880 After the massacre, Oliverto and his followers mounted on horseback and sped through the town 0.96

00:50:11.340 to the palace of the governor and laid siege to the palace, so frightening the governor that he was

00:50:16.920 forced to obey him and form a government with him. Oliverto made himself the prince. Having killed all the

00:50:24.060 dissidents who might hit him back, he strengthened his position with new rulers and regulations governing

00:50:29.920 civil and military matters. So that in his one year as prince in Fermo, he did not only make himself

00:50:36.960 secure within the city, but also came to be feared by all of his neighbors. He would have been as

00:50:43.000 difficult to destroy as Agathocles was if he hadn't, as I reported earlier, allowed himself to be deceived

00:50:48.980 by Suzy Ray Borgia, who netted him along with Orsini and Vietelli and Senegali, where one year after the

00:50:58.600 massacre, he was strangled together with Vitelzo, whom he had made his leader in virtue and wickedness.

00:51:09.140 So this guy comes in and pulls the red wedding, right? He gathers all these people together who are

00:51:13.980 critical. He says, you got to let me in with my horsemen, my soldiers, so I can show people that

00:51:18.920 I have been at work. I'm, you know, I don't have all these jewels. I don't have these riches, but I

00:51:23.340 can show the men loyal to me, right? And that will let them know that I am someone of stature and someone

00:51:27.660 who's made a difference. Calls all these people together, has all the leaders murdered, immediately

00:51:32.200 goes and forces, you know, all kind of the other authorities inside the city to ultimately capitulate to

00:51:40.460 him, declare him the new ruler. Some may wonder how a man like Agathocles, after countless treacheries

00:51:46.740 and cruelties, could live for years secure in his country and defend himself from external enemies

00:51:51.460 and never be conspired against by his own citizens, seeing that many others would have also used

00:51:56.420 cruelty, seeing as many others who have used cruelty, haven't been able to hold onto their ruling

00:52:02.140 position in peacetime, let alone the insecure times of war. I believe that it depends on whether

00:52:08.240 cruelty is employed well or badly. All right, so this is interesting, right? Multiple times,

00:52:14.620 Machiavelli has warned us that you can be too cruel to your citizens. You can make yourself vulnerable

00:52:20.220 by imposing wickedness upon them. However, he's saying, look, in the case of Agathocles,

00:52:26.680 he did do all these wicked things, but he didn't get betrayed. His people didn't turn on him. He didn't

00:52:32.380 ultimately lose that power. So what is different? Does that mean that cruelty never works? Does that mean

00:52:37.860 wickedness never works? Why does it work in this case? What are the differences? And he says,

00:52:42.240 well, it depends on how you apply that cruelty. How do we end up applying that cruelty? One, cruel acts

00:52:48.940 are used well, if we can supply well to wicked acts, if they are needed for political security and are all

00:52:56.760 committed to a single stroke and then discontinued or turned into something that is to the advantage

00:53:02.520 of the subject. So first, you don't just do cruel things to do cruel things. A ruler who's just cruel

00:53:10.480 by nature, that is not good. If you're going to use the cruelty, it should only be because you need it

00:53:15.280 for political security. Then you should do it in a single stroke. If you're going to apply this

00:53:20.900 wickedness, this cruelty, do it quickly. Do it one stroke. Don't drag it out. Don't make it a long

00:53:26.360 process. Don't become the cruel dictator who is bad to your people all the time. That doesn't work.

00:53:31.840 If you're going to need to use wickedness and cruelty, use it only for advantage. That is

00:53:36.760 absolutely necessary. Use it swiftly and make sure you discontinue it once you have advantage or turn it

00:53:44.960 into something once it's discontinued that is advantageous to your subjects. Cruel acts are badly

00:53:52.660 used when, even if there are a few of them at the outset, their numbers grow through time. Those

00:53:58.620 who practice the first system may be able to improve somewhat when they're standing in the eyes

00:54:04.380 of God and men, as Agathocles did. Those who follow number two, the others can't possibly maintain 0.76

00:54:10.060 themselves. So if you are cruel, if you're wicked, but you ultimately turn this to the advantage of

00:54:16.740 your people, secure your power, maybe you can gain some favor back in the eyes of God and your people

00:54:22.300 and continue on. However, if you just deploy the cruelty for the sake of cruelty, you continue to

00:54:27.940 do it no matter what. You don't use it to advantage of your people. It's going to cost you.

00:54:33.920 So someone who is seizing a state should think hard about all the injuries he'll have to inflict

00:54:39.340 and get them all over with at the outset, rather than having cruelty as a daily occurrence.

00:54:46.180 By stopping cruelty very soon, the usurper will be able to reassure people and win the

00:54:52.280 over with his side to his side with generosity. Someone who doesn't proceed in this way, whether

00:54:59.060 from fear or bad advice will always have to have a knife in their hand and won't be able

00:55:04.880 to rely on their subjects who will be alienated by this continued and repeated injury. So even

00:55:11.840 though Machiavelli has said, okay, I can't praise wickedness, right? We can't, we can't go

00:55:18.960 around calling wickedness virtue. If you do it right, if you do it quickly, if you do

00:55:25.840 it wisely, if you don't become a cruel tyrant, but you're simply using it to obtain power and

00:55:32.700 consolidate power. And if you ultimately turn it to the vintage of people, you know, that

00:55:38.880 might be the way to go, right? Like here, here's how you could do it and ultimately could benefit

00:55:43.960 from it. But if you don't, if you don't do it that way, you're going to live your entire

00:55:47.820 life as a tyrant who is worried about being stabbed in the back. So he says in an interesting

00:55:52.920 way here, yes, you can deploy wickedness and cruelty and it does work. However, be aware

00:56:00.300 that you have to eventually become a good ruler. You can be a wicked ruler, a cruel ruler to obtain

00:56:06.880 power, but eventually you do have to become a good ruler. You can't just stay wicked. You can't

00:56:11.380 just maintain that cruelty. You eventually have to benefit your people because if you don't,

00:56:16.180 you're just going to live your entire life in fear of them killing you. Above all things,

00:56:20.960 a prince ought to relate to his people in such a way that nothing that happens, good or bad,

00:56:27.380 will make him change his course. In troubling times, you don't want to be, you won't be able

00:56:33.180 to fix the trouble by moving towards greater harshness because it will be too late for that,

00:56:37.860 nor will it help you to move in the direction of greater mildness because you will seem to

00:56:42.720 have been compelled and you'll get no credit. So he says, look, good, bad, cruel, kind, whatever you

00:56:51.080 do, be locked in and stay the course. Make sure that that is the way you plan to win because once

00:56:58.860 you've started the process, if you decide to become harsh or because you were too weak with the people

00:57:06.500 earlier, it won't work because the time for that has already passed. It'll be too late and it's not

00:57:11.820 going to help you. However, if you were being too harsh and you decide to be mild, people will assume

00:57:18.500 you were compelled to do it, not that you wanted to do it. And because you were compelled to do it,

00:57:22.620 they won't give you credit for changing your mind. So once you've set the course, once you've made

00:57:27.000 the decision, the die is cast, follow through because wavering one direction or another isn't

00:57:34.280 going to help you. A lot of people will point to Donald Trump and say, that's what he's doing now.

00:57:38.620 Maybe Machiavelli would appreciate that choice. Maybe not. But an interesting thing to remember,

00:57:44.080 once you have picked the line of action, the level of severity you're going to bring,

00:57:48.060 don't become weaker and don't become more harsh because it's too late either way.

00:57:51.740 You'll either drive people away from you or they won't give you credit for the fact

00:57:56.660 that you've changed because they'll assume you only did it under pressure.

00:58:00.460 All right, guys. So those are the chapters on acquiring a principality under someone else's

00:58:06.160 arms and the chapter on wickedness. I think that both of these are critical chapters, some of the

00:58:12.740 most infamous chapters in the prince. So I hope that our exegesis of this was helpful.

00:58:19.120 Let's head over to the questions. Look like we have at least one.

00:58:27.960 All right. 100 Grit Hands says, what books do you recommend to help me beef up my Roman history?

00:58:34.200 Most of my history reading has been focused on the 19th and 20th century, but ad font is.

00:58:40.040 Let's see. Well, there's a lot of sources you could go to. Obviously, Livy is a standard.

00:58:47.560 There's a reason that ultimately, you know, you have you have Machiavelli using Livy as kind of his

00:58:56.500 Bible for his discourses on Livy, and that's going to be his favorite sources. So you can look at

00:59:01.580 Tacitus. You can look at. Now I have to remember all my Roman historians.

00:59:08.260 You can look at trying to remember. I've got several of his books and have read them and I

00:59:17.960 suddenly can't remember. I'm trying to think of the older historians that everyone's going to be

00:59:21.920 drawing from. Lives. Someone will help me in chat at some point, I'm sure, is it is an essential

00:59:31.760 historical text that goes through many Greek and Roman tales. I'll just forgive me for the Google

00:59:40.980 guys, but I'll do this so that I can remember.

01:00:01.760 Plutarch, of course, Plutarch. Sorry. So it's just completely blanked out there. But yeah,

01:00:09.260 these are some of your ancient sources that will that are that are highly favored. And of course,

01:00:14.300 if you're looking for newer sources, even though Mike Duncan has revealed himself to be like a

01:00:20.900 horrible lib, insufferable lib, his History of Rome series is well loved. I've listened to

01:00:28.060 through twice all like 170 something episodes. He also wrote a great book, Storm Before the Storm.

01:00:36.200 That'll give you some background. So these are some places that ultimately you can go. There's

01:00:43.060 so many great but start, you know, start with the older sources if you can. Maybe you want something

01:00:47.240 like a Mike Duncan to like wet your whistle. But if you can go back to those older sources, of course,

01:00:52.040 they're really important. And that's a great place to start. All right, guys, we will go ahead and wrap

01:01:00.460 this up. And I want to thank everybody for watching. And of course, we will be continuing our series on

01:01:06.440 Machiavelli. So if you want to get notifications for when we go live and when we're talking about

01:01:11.760 Machiavelli, you need to subscribe to the channel on YouTube. We need to click the bell notifications so

01:01:16.900 you know when the shows are happening. This is all also going to be in a playlist. So if you want to

01:01:21.960 catch up on previous episodes, maybe you're jumping in, you found this interesting and you want to go

01:01:25.940 back and make sure you have the context or the other things that we talked about, you can find

01:01:30.220 that playlist in my on my YouTube channel. And of course, if you want to get these broadcasts as

01:01:35.380 podcasts, you need to subscribe to the or McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform. When you do,

01:01:39.760 if you leave a rating or review, it really helps with the algorithm magic. Thank you,

01:01:43.800 everybody for watching. And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 09, 2026

Machiavelli on the Power of Wickedness ｜ 3⧸9⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript