The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom

by James Burnham

For, virtue begets peace; peace begets idleness; idleness, mutiny; and mutiny, destruction: and then, vice versa; that ruin begets laws; those laws, virtue; and virtue begets honor and good success.” (History of Florence, Book V.)

Independence, the first condition of liberty, can be secured in the last analysis only by the armed strength of the citizenry itself, never by mercenaries or allies or money; consequently arms are the first foundation of liberty. There is no lasting safeguard for liberty in anything but one’s own strength.

the powerful and their spokesmen—all the “official” thinkers, the lawyers and philosophers and preachers and demagogues and moralists and editors—must defame Machiavelli. Machiavelli says that rulers lie and break faith: this proves, they say, that he libels human nature. Machiavelli says that ambitious men struggle for power: he is apologizing for the opposition, the enemy, and trying to confuse you about us, who wish to lead you for your own good and welfare. Machiavelli says that you must keep strict watch over officials and subordinate them to the law: he is encouraging subversion and the loss of national unity. Machiavelli says that no man with power is to be trusted: you see that his aim is to smash all your faith and ideals.

“The freest country is the country where the rights of the governed are best protected against arbitrary caprice and tyranny on the part of rulers.” (P. 13.)