One quote of Machiavelli is a reminder that ideals can only be achieved in rhetoric. The goal of a decent equitable civilization can never be achieved due to the realism of human behavior.
Many men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good. (1)
This is why politics only appears to be competitive and divisive. It maintains the illusion of choice, as suggested by Machiavelli himself.
Among Machiavelli’s suggestions are the following:
• It is better to be feared than loved.
• Keep up the illusion of being reliable at keeping your word.
• Keep the nobility satisfied in order to prevent conspiracies.
• Keep your subjects occupied so they have no chance to rebel (conquering lands or employed at skilled trades – oops! Too many of us are out of work. Smell revolution yet?).
• Being overly generous will only cause greed for more.
Machiavelli had his own version of the Golden Rule: “The offenses one does to a man should be such that one does not fear revenge for it.” Of course this means either don’t do anything, or do it in such a way that will afford no retribution. This is the realistic human behavior golden rule that most people live by.
This philosophy used to belong to the Democrats of the South. Why Machiavellianism easily shifted parties is simple. There really never was a difference between the parties. One party seems to be more honest than the other. A few Republicans finally openly admitted to Machiavellian behavior.
Dennis Miller is openly conservative and said on many occasions that it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and people need to toughen up and get theirs (what ever it is) before someone else does.
Why would you be loyal to a party that exploits the masses to get the golden ticket to government service benefits? You don’t really have a choice.
I never read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but I get the idea that the free market should be allowed to self-regulate. This is the mantra of conservatives. They had everyone convinced that markets could self-regulate from the birth of the Industrial Revolution all the way up until 2008 when one leading conservative economist finally admitted to a U.S. Congressional subcommittee hearing that the idea was “fundamentally flawed.”
For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side. But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. (2)
The rest of the Republicans should not wait as long as Greenspan to confess the true Machiavellian nature of the free market system, to themselves as well as everyone else. If they hurry up and acknowledge the truth like Dennis Miller and Alan Greenspan, there’s a slim chance they might get a few more supporters.
Democrats won’t admit to Machiavellianism. They have hope and dream silage to keep the masses from rebelling. They are going to get elected, then patronize their “nobility” just like the Republicans. The masses get screwed either way.
The “nobility” in our case are the industrial complexes of Banking, Finance, Military, Energy, Railroad, Automotive, Telecommunication, Medicine, Agriculture, Insurance, a few multinational retailers and other corporations "too large to fail."
I would suggest that the entire system be crushed by everyone not paying taxes, but it looks like enough of us are unemployed or poor that our tax refunds will do enough damage. What the hell. They can’t afford to put us in prison anymore anyway.
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1. Wikipedia – Partial Summary of Machiavelli’s The Prince
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince ]
2. New York Times October 24, 2008 -- Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html ]
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