The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom

by James Burnham

“The despotism of the leaders,” moreover, “does not arise solely from a vulgar lust of power or from uncontrolled egoism, but is often the outcome of a profound and sincere conviction of their own value and of the services which they have rendered to the common cause.” (P. 229.)

“Once elected, the chosen of the people can no longer be opposed in any way. He personifies the majority, and all resistance to his will is anti-democratic. The leader of such a democracy is irremovable, for the nation, having once spoken, cannot contradict itself. He is, moreover, infallible.…

Once granted the principle of representation, Bonapartism can be regarded as the logical culmination of democracy. More than this: to judge from the experience not only of our own times but from that of the Greek city-states, the Roman Republic, and the medieval city-states, Bonapartism is likewise the normal—though not perhaps the invariable—historical culmination of democracy. Bonapartism, in one or another stage of development, is the most striking and typical political structure of our day.

It is a grave historical error to identify Bonapartism with other forms of despotism. Bonapartism is not mere military dictatorship; it is not the traditional hereditary or God-derived despotism of absolute monarchies; it is not the oligarchical rule of a closed hereditary caste. Mature Bonapartism is a popular, a democratic despotism, founded on democratic doctrine, and, at least in its initiation, committed to democratic forms. If Bonapartism, in fact rather than in theory, denies democracy, it does so by bringing democracy to completion.

The autocratic tendencies of organization have not, of course, escaped the notice of those proponents of democracy who have been both hard-headed and sincere. Recognizing them, a number of measures have been proposed in an effort to thwart these tendencies and to guard democracy. Michels discusses the result obtained from four of the chief of these: the referendum, “renunciation,” syndicalism, and anarchism.

Bernstein has said with good reason that even if none but the most important political and administrative questions are to be submitted to the popular vote, the happy citizen of the future will find every Sunday upon his desk such a number of interrogatories that he will soon lose all enthusiasm for the referendum.

By “renunciation,” Michels refers to a device that has been frequently advocated for working-class organizations, and sometimes enforced by them. Reasoning that the anti-democratic habits of leaders follow from their possession of material privileges beyond those available to the rank-and-file, it is held that these tendencies will disappear if the privileges are made inaccessible, if the leaders are required to have the same income, conditions of life, social and cultural environment, as the members.

Third, the “syndicalist” policy aims to defend democracy. As we have seen in Part IV, syndicalism, noting the anti-democratic tendencies of the state and of political parties, tells the workers to have nothing to do with politics, but to confine themselves altogether to “their own” organizations, the trade unions (syndicates) and the labor co-operatives. The naïveté of this proposal is apparent enough. Trade unions and co-operatives are not exempt from the autocratic tendencies of organizations,

Anarchism, finally, which was the first movement to study in detail the autocratic tendencies of organization, draws the clearest and most formally consistent conclusion. Since all organization leads to autocracy, then,

in order to achieve democracy, there must be no organization at all, neither state nor party nor union. This viewpoint, which the history of anarchism shows is capable of producing very noble human individuals, is wholly divorced from the reality of human society, which necessarily includes organizations.

Anarchists are compelled, when they try to put their ideas into social practice, to accept organization.

All that we can say is that the means of dominion employed by the anarchist leader belong to an epoch which political parties have already outlived. These are the means utilized by the apostle and the orator: the flaming power of thought, greatness of self-sacrifice, profundity of conviction. Their dominion is exercised, not over the organization, but over minds; it is the outcome, not of technical indispensability, but of intellectual ascendancy and moral superiority.” (P. 358.)

This, the general conclusion from Michels’ entire study, he sums up as the iron law of oligarchy, a law which, upon the basis of the evidence at our disposal, would seem to hold for all social movements and all forms of society. The law shows that the democratic ideal of self-government is impossible.

However, from the iron law of oligarchy, Michels does not at all conclude that we should abandon the struggle for democracy, or, more strictly, for a reduction to the minimum possible of those autocratic tendencies which will nevertheless always remain.

“The mass will never rule except in abstracto. Consequently the question … is not whether ideal democracy is realizable, but rather to what point and in what degree democracy is desirable, possible, and realizable at a given moment.” (P. 402.)

Vilfredo Pareto, in his gigantic book, Mind and Society,[*] disavows any purpose other than to describe and correlate social facts.

He is trying merely to describe what society is like, and to discover some of the general laws in terms of which society operates. What could or should be done with this knowledge, once obtained, is a question he does not try to answer. This restriction of the problem is more extreme than in the case of the other Machiavellians.

Everyone knows that a certain amount of human conduct is non-logical. Pareto’s stress is on the enormous scope of the non-logical—his book lists many thousands of examples, and each of these could suggest a thousand more of the same kind.

We discover, to begin with, that men who profess a certain goal are just about as likely to take actions contrary to it as in accordance with it. Nor can we generally attribute these contrary actions to duplicity; those who act contrary to the goal can continue at the same time believing sincerely in it, and not noting any contradiction.

Reformist, syndicalist, Trotskyist, and Stalinist parties of the labor movement all cite the same texts of Marx while cutting each others’ throats; all Christian nations have the New Testament and the Fathers on their clashing sides.

There is, he says, a fairly small number of relatively constant factors (or “nuclei”) which change little or not at all from age to age or from culture to culture. These constant factors he calls “residues.” Along with these there are other factors which are variable, change rapidly, and are different from age to age and nation to nation. These variable factors he calls “derivations.” [*]

Pareto’s theories, properly understood, do not depend upon any special psychological doctrine. Even if psychology says that men do not have any permanent instincts, it may still be true that there are certain permanent, or at least relatively constant, types of social activity.

Derivations—which include all or nearly all doctrines and beliefs and theories that figure in social struggles, principles of democracy and law and authority, moral and theological systems, justifications of this or that form of society, bills of rights and programs and charters—are divided by Pareto (1419) into four main classes:

Since the beginning of systematic thought—that is, for about 2500 years in western culture—there has been constant discussion of the problem of “the good community,” “the ideal society,” “the best form of government.” Tens of thousands of persons have given time and intelligence to arguments over these questions, and have devised nearly as many answers. After all this while, men have not reached any generally accepted conclusions, and there is no indication that we have advanced in these matters a single step beyond the reasonings of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The great rationalistic dream of modern times, believing that social actions are or can be primarily logical, has taught the illusion that the True and the Good are identical, that if men knew the truth about themselves and their social and political life, then society would become ever better; and that falsehood and absurdity always hurt social welfare. But things do not stand in that simple way. Sometimes the truth aids society. But often a widespread knowledge of the truth may weaken or destroy sentiments, habits, attitudes upon which the integrity of social life, above all in times of crisis, may depend.

Pareto, like all Machiavellians, has thus a pluralistic theory of history. Changes in society do not result from the exclusive impact of any single cause, but rather from the interdependent and reciprocal influences of a variety of causes, principally, though not only, these five.

The character of a society, Pareto holds, is above all the character of its élite; its accomplishments are the accomplishments of its élite; its history is properly understood as the history of its élite; successful predictions about its future are based upon evidence drawn from the study of the composition and structure of its élite. Pareto’s conclusions here are the same as those reached by Mosca in his analysis of the narrower but similar concept of the “ruling class.”

The children of members of the élite are helped to a position in the élite regardless of their own capacities and at the sacrifice of individuals of greater capacity appearing among the non-élite. If this principle is carried far enough, if the élite becomes “closed” or almost so, degeneration is bound to set in. The percentage of weak and inferior persons within the élite necessarily increases, while at the same time superior persons accumulate among the non-élite. A point is reached where the élite will be overthrown and destroyed.

From these considerations it follows that a relatively free circulation of the élites—both up and down the social scale—is a requisite for a healthy and a strong society. Conversely, it follows that when in a society the élite becomes closed or nearly closed, that society is threatened either with internal revolution or with destruction from outside.

2. To prevent or resist violence, the governing class resorts to ‘diplomacy,’ fraud, corruption—governmental authority passes, in a word, from the lions to the foxes. The governing class bows its head under the threat of violence, but it surrenders only in appearances, trying to turn the flank of the obstacle it cannot demolish in frontal attack.

It has become fashionable to say that we are in the midst of a revolution. There is something rather ludicrous in the spectacle of well-paid ministers telling their congregations all about the great revolution in which they live, or a 75-year-old bank president explaining world revolution to an after-dinner audience.

For there really is a revolution, and we are in truth living in the midst of it. In The Managerial Revolution,[*] I tried to summarize the general character of the revolution. I did so, in the analysis I therein made, primarily in institutional, especially in economic, terms. I propose here to re-define the nature of the revolution through the use of the Machiavellian principles.

The unwillingness or inability to use force effectively was shown in the unprecedented growth of humanitarian sentiments and their attempted expression in all fields of social life. Reform instead of punishment was to solve the problem of domestic crime. Arbitration was to replace strikes and riots in settling internal class disputes. Imperialism was to be done away with.

The new, or re-newed, élite (as we have seen, the old élite is never wholly wiped out) must include men who are able to control contemporary mass industry, the massed labor force, and a supra-national form of political organization. This means, in place of private owners skilled in the manipulation of financial profits or losses on the market, and of the old sort of parliamentary politician, those whom I call “managers”—the production executives and organizers of the industrial process, officials trained in the manipulation of the great labor organizations, and the administrators, bureau chiefs and commissars developed in the executive branch of the unlimited modern state machines. And, that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy, and continental or vast regional world political organization.

Bonapartism is a type of government very dissimilar to what men in the 19th century ordinarily thought of as democracy. Nevertheless, as we have already seen, Bonapartism does not violate the formula of democracy nor the place assigned to suffrage. Rather can Bonapartist theory plausibly claim to be the logical as well as the historical culmination of the democratic formula, just as the plebiscite can claim to be the most perfect form of democratic suffrage.

Striking support for this conclusion is provided by the speeches and writings of Vice-President Wallace, who is the major prophet, in this country, of the Bonapartist mystique. Wallace, it may be recalled, never held elective office prior to 1941. It is unanimously agreed that he is in his present position solely because of the personal demand of the President, which was counter to the prior wishes of almost all the delegates to the 1940 Convention of the Democratic party. Wallace’s nomination by the Convention,

After quoting some century-old words of Tocqueville on Russia, Wallace discovers that “Russia and the United States are far closer than Tocqueville could possibly have imagined.” “Both,” he declares, “are striving for the education, the productivity and the enduring happiness of the common man.”

Two months before this speech of Wallace’s, an interesting expression of another facet of Bonapartist doctrine occurred in the sudden message by which the President ordered Congress to pass new anti-inflation legislation. The President said: “I ask the Congress to take this action by the first of October. Inaction on your part by that date will leave me with an inescapable responsibility to the people of the country to see to it that the war effort is no longer imperiled by threat of economic chaos. In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility, and I will act. At the same time that farm prices are stabilized, wages can and will be stabilized also. This I will do.… When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people—to whom they belong.”

The modern Machiavellians, like Machiavelli himself, do not waste time arguing the merits or demerits of the myth of democracy defined as self-government. But they are very profoundly concerned with the reality of democracy defined as liberty. They know that the degree of liberty present within a society is a fact of the greatest consequence for the character of the whole social structure and for the individuals living within that structure.

A considerable degree of liberty is not usual in human society. If we review the history of humanity, so far as we know it, it is apparent that despotic regimes are far more frequent than free regimes, and it would therefore seem that despotism is more nearly than freedom in accord with human nature.

Liberty, with its right of public opposition, does often delay decisions, and undoubtedly expends social energies on internal conflicts. Both of these consequences make for external weakness. But it may well be that this is more than compensated for by two other consequences of liberty, as against despotism. Under a free regime there is more chance for the development and utilization of creative forces and individuals that cannot get expression under a despotism. And, second, public criticism by an opposition exposes, and tends to force correction of, mistakes on the part of the governing élite which might prove fatal if too long and stubbornly maintained.

To act scientifically would mean to act “logically” in Pareto’s sense; that is, to select, consciously and deliberately, real goals (goals which are not transcendental or fanciful or impossible), and then to take practical steps which are, in fact, appropriate for reaching those goals.

The great anti-fascist novelist, Ignazio Silone, writes:[*] “The cafone [which may be approximately translated as ‘small farmer’ or ‘sharecropper’] is by no means primitive; in one sense he is overcivilized. The experience of generations makes him believe that the State is merely a better organized Camorra [i.e., racket].… Marx often speaks of the peasants as having torpid minds, but what did he know about them? I imagine that he watched them in the market-place at Trier and observed that they were sullen and tongue-tied. He would not stop to think that they had assumed this role deliberately.”

All utopias would be excluded, all those mirages of permanent and universal peace and plenty and joy. Moreover, since the general pattern of social development is determined by technological change and by other factors quite beyond the likelihood of human control, a scientific élite would have to accept that general pattern. It was an illusion, in 1800, to think that society could revive the social structure appropriate to the pre-steam-engine era; so today is it an illusion to dream that the 19th century structure can be retained on the technological basis of the assembly line, the airplane, electricity, and radio. From this point of view, we may say that a scientific élite would have to be “opportunist”—not in the narrower sense in which opportunism means taking the easiest course today with no clear thought of tomorrow, but in the broader perspective of not trying to buck the main stream of development, not fighting for causes that are already lost when the battle begins.

Those who have privileges almost always develop false or distorted ideas about themselves. They are under a compulsion to deceive themselves as well as others through some kind of irrational theory which will seek to justify their monopoly of those privileges, rather than to explain the annoying truths about how the privileges are in fact acquired and held.

Our leaders—not only the governing élites but those other sections of the élites, such as that grown out of the labor movement, which have been moving toward increased power—are for the most part non-scientific and even anti-scientific in their handling of major social issues, while at the same time they have adopted scientific techniques in dealing with narrower problems of mass-manipulation. The programs which they profess, as well as those upon which they act, are devoid of reality in their failure to recognize the general pattern of our age. They are content not simply with myths, but with remnants of outworn myths. They admit no responsibility except to the fiction of the mass, which is only the projection of their own unloosed will to power. Proceeding in this manner, with the material resources devised by physical science at their disposal, they have brought civilization to the most shattering crisis of recorded history.

In The Managerial Revolution I failed to give enough attention to this phase of the revolution. I continue to believe, as I stated in that book, that under the complex socio-economic conditions of modern civilization a stable ruling class made up almost entirely of soldiers, as were many ruling classes under more primitive conditions, cannot develop. The ruling class in our age must include those able to direct the intricate social forces of our day, and this the soldiers cannot do, except perhaps during some brief period of crisis.