Mark Blitz, "Machiavelli's Common Good," Library of Law and Liberty, August 14, 2017.

Machiavelli’s Politics is aptly named. Catherine Zuckert’s new book concentrates intently on Niccolo Machiavelli’s judgment about how best to govern political communities in the ordinary sense—places such as Florence and Rome. Her views about what makes Machiavelli novel when compared with ancient and medieval thinkers primarily concern such governing. And, her most telling disputes with other scholars also concern political themes.

This focus might seem unsurprising or inevitable, for who would doubt Machiavelli’s political thrust? But Professor Zuckert’s argument differs from those that feature or co-emphasize a Machiavelli who is a spiritual warrior, one who means to reorient not only politics but human understanding generally. Instead she offers a thoughtful and detailed account of Machiavelli’s politics, enhanced by intelligent analyses of his comedies.

Zuckert, the Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, conducts her discussion by examining each of Machiavelli’s major works. She writes chapters on The Prince, the Discourses (including precise outlines of their often obscure organization), Mandragola, Art of War, Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Florentine Histories, surrounded by an introduction and conclusion. The resulting 500 pages may seem daunting, but Professor Zuckert’s style is clear and compact, and although the book makes an argument as a whole, one can read its separate discussions profitably. One cannot help but admire the scope of her analyses, and the breadth of her scholarly and historical understanding.

Professor Zuckert’s argument is as follows. Machiavelli’s major concern is to connect nobles and plebeians, the few and the many, so that together they serve the common good. She sometimes says that since the common good primarily concerns security of property and person, it is democratic, or the additive good of the greatest number. But, given that the community cannot last if either the few or the many have their way completely, the common good must serve all. Its truest substance, she more fundamentally argues, is liberty under law. Political life does not arise by nature, moreover, but to secure us from others and from necessity. The political problem arises from the clash between nobles, who seek to dominate, and plebs, who seek not to be dominated. They are at odds, yet they need each other to maintain order and to fight danger.

The two types arise from two different humors, but the humors are not fully distinct naturally. They exist in different degrees, connected by the common measure of the desire to acquire. They express themselves or have their meaning primarily politically, but they do not divide perfectly between or among the members of the different classes in any actual republic or principality.

In fact, we are constituted more by experience and training than by nature, so Machiavelli believes that the human (and geographic) material from which one begins only minimally constrains the form into which one can shape it. Sensible political life, that is, a healthy republic, is achieved not by habituating aristocrats to Aristotelian excellence of character, but by the prudence and virtue that enable one not to be good, as necessity requires. Useful princely practices include appearing to be pious and respectable, because the people usually believe what they see. They also include a prince’s eliciting fear when needed, or engaging in cruelty well used, as long as he does not become hated.

If the proper institutional orders and laws are not present, individual characteristics are insufficient to secure a common good. Such orders include: competitive elections so that offices are rotated; mechanisms to judge leaders and generals and hold them to account publically; and the hope of all that they or their families could hold high positions.

Small changes in these orders can have unexpectedly large consequences. Prolonged internal peace is likely to lead to corruption, so war (although not unbounded imperial expansion) is always necessary. Machiavelli therefore makes several recommendations for ordering armies properly. He also promotes the value of confederations in helping communities stay free and not become corrupt and soft, or fall under the dominance of the hard. His wish to unite Italy against its foes is real, and is neither a stand-in for other goals nor mere flattery of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

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