Book Review: 'The Machiavellians' by James Burnham

"History is a graveyard of aristocracies" - Vilfredo Pareto

In my first year as a law student, we were taught various theories on why laws exist in society as part of the curriculum. These theories ranged from John Locke’s and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Social Contract" theory (As libertarians often say in response to this, "I didn't sign shit.") to Thomas Hobbes' assertion that "life is nasty, brutish and short", and for these reasons, we need government, and by extension, laws, to protect us from each other.

These theories were simply trotted out without much thought or analysis, and we were simply forced to digest them in order to move on with the program. Law, as one would know, is inextricably intertwined with politics since politics is ostensibly about governance, and laws are the mechanisms in which those in power require to have in place in order to govern effectively. Thus, with such pre-programmed concepts, one hardly considers fundamental questions such as "What is politics?" on a deeper level.

Reading James Burnham's 'The Machiavellians' forces you to think about such fundamental questions. 'The Machiavellians' essentially dismantles your system of thought in relation to what you’ve ever known about politics. It breaks apart what has been pre-installed into your brain, and lays everything bare (like open source) in order for you to see the truth for yourself.

'The Machiavellians' is undoubtedly one of the greatest books on political theory ever written. I must confess, I was highly sceptical of Political Science being a “real thing” before I read this masterpiece by Burnham. I had always thought Politics was something that couldn't be scientifically studied. However, by the end of 'The Machiavellians', my outlook had completely changed. James Burnham puts the “science” in political science by extricating politics from all the fluff, leaving behind only what it truly entails - Politics is nothing more than the struggle for power.

The book centers around the thought of Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat who lived during the height of the Renaissance and was one of the first few individuals to study politics from a purely objective standpoint - paying attention only to discernible facts and evidence based on historical societies, and not to platitudes.

Machiavelli is known for writing his most infamous work, 'The Prince', which many critics attribute to having assisted despotic rulers obtain power. For this reason, Machiavelli has been demonized for centuries. The book thus helps (in a large way) to rehabilitate the tarnished image of Machiavelli.

What Machiavelli's critics often do not realize, is that Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' and many other works such as the 'History of Florence' as objective analytical studies of politics, not as blueprints for despots to utilize to their advantage.

Because Machiavelli's work is value-neutral and amoral (as should be the case for all Sciences lest it be tainted with a purpose-driven agenda in which it would no longer be a science), it is true that tyrants made use of Machiavelli's observations in order to gain power. Burnham himself attests to this in the book. Thomas Cromwell "was said to have a copy of Machiavell always in his pocket" and 20th century leader of Fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini "wrote a college thesis on Machiavelli". Conversely, some more benevolent leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew was also known to have read Machiavelli, and his greatest contribution to society was transforming Singapore from a backwater swamp village to a financial powerhouse in Asia.

Burnham points out that because Machiavelli was able to see power for what it was, not as a means to a greater end, but simply as an end in itself, and particularly an end in which all men are tempted to attain, his reputation had to be maligned. Had Machiavelli been read (and of course understood) in every household, men in power would have been exposed everywhere as frauds. Of course he had to be condemned. His exposure of politics as nothing more than the struggle for power threatened those already in power.

As Burnham states:

"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."

In this brilliant book, James Burnham provides an incisive analysis of the theories of not just Machiavelli but also his contemporary followers (known as the Italian school of political science comprising Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels), and in the process, draws a disturbingly clear picture of the nature of politics.

The book opens with an analysis of Dante Alighieri's 'De Monarchia' which was written with the intention of delineating the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor and the power of the Pope in medieval Italy. Burnham masterfully depicts how ostensibly rational Dante's writings are, before brutally knocking them down to reveal the historical and social context behind Dante's arguments. Dante had a personal stake in the matter and his treatise was used to justify his own feelings of hatred against his enemies. Burnham refers to this phenomenon as the distinction between Formal Meaning and Real Meaning. The Formal Meaning constitutes whatever ostensibly rational justification there is to be disguise the author's real intent (Real Meaning).

With that, Burnham draws a parallel to modern day politics in which political party platforms and manifestos always take on a formal character - hiding within its shadow more nefarious agendas, and in the rare case that such agendas are not nefarious, agendas that are simply attributable to human nature - such as the primal conquest for attaining power.

The second chapter revolves around Machiavelli's school of thought being laid out in contradistinction to Dante's "politics as wish" agenda so prevalent in society - old and new alike. As Burnham points out:

"In the case of Dante we had to distinguish carefully between the formal, presumed goals, and the hidden real goals. In Machiavelli, as in all scientific writing, there is no such distinction. Formal and real are one, open and explicit."

After introducing the reader to a truncated summary of Machiavelli's thoughts, Burnham turns his attention to the modern "Machiavellians" - the rightful heirs to Machiavelli's theory of political science, the Italian school of elite theory.

Burnham begins with Gaetano Mosca and his famous theory of the "Ruling Class". Since science can be broadly defined as the objective analysis of discernible facts and evidence, Mosca, being a Machiavellian himself and therefore "anti-formal", notes a universal fact of human nature: that there always exists, in every society since time immemorial, two classes - the "Ruling Class", always a minority, otherwise known elsewhere in the book as the "Elite" - and the “Ruled”, which comprise the masses. To Mosca, "Political history and political science are thus predominantly the history and science of ruling classes, their origin, development, composition, structure and changes."

The Ruling Class according to Mosca controls the Ruled through what he calls "political formulas". As Burnham succinctly writes: "This formula rationalizes and justifies its rule and the structure of the society over which it rules". The most famous "political formula" in modern society is the "will of the people", otherwise known as "democracy". Does democracy, which entail the notion of "self-government" mean that no ruling class exists? This would be a flat-out lie. As Michael Malice (also a fan of the book) puts it, take democracy in its purest form - a town hall setting (or as Burnham would say, a referendum - analogous to the Direct Democracy model found in certain parts of Switzerland today): theoretically speaking, every one is present, and every one gets to hear what the elected rulers are proposing with regards to exercising their power, and everyone gets to have a say. Practically speaking, however, someone gets to determine who speaks, and for how long, and who gets to ask questions, and whom the elected rulers comprise of in the first place, anyway. Therefore, even in the purest form of democracy one can conceive of, there also exists an elite/ruling class. The existence of a ruling class, to Mosca, is an inescapable fact of life.

After dealing with Mosca's "Ruling Class", Burnham turns his attention to the radical socialist, Georges Sorel. Though Sorel is not a Machiavellian, his insight is significant because his thought expands more on Mosca's "Political Formulas". Sorel recognizes the importance of "myths" (which is really another label for "political formulas") in the pursuit of power. To Sorel, a myth is the sentimental source of political action. It is neither true nor false, and "is identical with the the convictions of a certain group."

After discussing Mosca's Ruling Class and its machinery of oppression in the form of "political formulas" or "myths" in the preceding chapters, Burnham moves on to another prominent member of the Italian school of elite theory and Machiavellian thinker, Robert Michels.

The chapter on Michels helps in explaining Mosca's Ruling Class theory in even greater detail - first touching upon the inevitable fact of leadership in every organization - be it political or non-political. Burnham drives forward the point that direct democracy and unfettered rule of the masses is mechanically and technically impossible. In order for organizations of all stripes to be effective, it requires the direction and stewardship of its most capable members. Sovereignty of the people cannot be realized in acutality because as Burnham notes, what "ought to be possessed by the mass, cannot be delegated." The myth of the will of the people therefore has to be realised in practice by the introduction of representatives. Hence the reason why the most popular form of government today is a parliamentary representative democracy. It is a mechanism in which the masses transfers their sovereignty to certain individuals, but as Burnham wryly points out, "the fact of leadership, obscured by the theory of representation, negates the principle of democracy" in the first place.

Eventually, these individuals (now constituting the elite/ruling class in reality, though formally representatives of the people) become unwilling to relinquish their positions of power and privilege. Even if they had noble intentions from the start, they are very likely to be corrupted by the power vested in them.

As Michels writes:

"He who has once attained to power will not readily be induced to return to the the comparatively obscure position which he formerly occupied.... The consciousness of power always produces vanity, and undue belief in personal greatness.... In the leader, consciousness of his personal worth, and of the need which the mass feels for guidance, combine to induce in his mind a recognition of his own superiority (real or supposed), and awake, in addition, that spirit of command which exists in the germ in every man born of woman. We see from this that every human power seeks to enlarge its prerogatives. He who has acquired power will almost always endeavor to consolidate it and to extend it, to multiply the ramparts which defend his position, and to withdraw himself from the control of the masses."

Burnham calls this the "despotism of the leaders" while Michels calls this "Bonapartism" (named after Napoleon III). "With great shrewdness, [he] continually repeated that he was no more than an instrument, a creature of the masses." Calling to mind the Formal/Real Meaning distinction discussed in the earlier chapter concerning Dante, we can see that the formal meaning here is the idea that one acts in accordance with the will of the people, but the real meaning is that he merely wants to cling on to power and not relinquish it. Burnham somberly points out that this "Bonapartism" is ultimately "the logical culmination of democracy."

The autocratic tendencies described above are as Burnham puts, "inherent in the nature of organization". And thus, the conclusion to be drawn from Michels' observations is that there always exists "the iron law of oligarchy". It is:

"… the law that shows that democratic ideal of self-government is impossible. Whatever social changes occur, whatever happens to economic relations, whether property is in private hands or socialized, organization will remain [for administrative, technical and mechanical reasons], and through organization an oligarchical rule will be perpetuated."

As Michels succinctly states:

"The social revolution would not effect any real modification of the internal structure of the mass. The socialists might conquer, but not socialism, wich would perish in the moment of its adherents' triumph."

Thus, in Burnham's eyes, "the state cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority."

"The majority is thus permanently incapable of self-government.... The majority of human beings, in a condition of eternal tutelage, are predestined by tragic necessity to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy." - Robert Michels

Moving on from Michels, Part VI of the Book focuses on perhaps the most famous of the Machiavellian thinkers, Vilfredo Pareto, known particularly among economists for devising the "Pareto distribution", a theory used to illustrate that the level of inputs and outputs are not always equal.

Here, Burnham illustrates upon Pareto's ideas of logical and non-logical conduct. For Pareto, society often acts in a way that is non-logical. Logical conduct is when "one's action is motivated by a deliberately held goal or purpose and when that goal is possible." Conversely, non-logical actions “have no deliberate motivation at all” and “purposes or goals that are impossible to achieve are non-logical.”

In recent times, we have seen human beings strive towards utopian ideals and goals (The Bolshevik Revolution being one of them), but as we now know, utopia is impossible to achieve. Despite this, the notion of a utopia still appeals largely to the masses. Many want a more equal and progressive society, and are willing to fight tooth and nail for it. Such utopian ideals are "myths" or "political formulas" that can be easily manipulated by ambitious and power-hungry individuals to climb the ranks of political leadership. More importantly, such utopian ideals, being impossible to achieve, fall within the sphere of non-logical conduct. This existed in the past, and it exists now, and it will exist forever.

As Pareto puts it:

"Taboos, magic, superstition, personified abstractions, myths, gods, empty verbalisms, in every culture and at every period of history express man's persisting non-logical impulses. The forms change, but the fundamentals remain. Gods and goddesses like Athena or Janus or Ammon are replaced by new divinities such as Progress and Humanity and even Science; hymns to the Jupiter give way to invocations to the People; the magic of votes and electoral manipulations supersedes the magic of dolls and wands; faith in the Historical Process does duty for faith in the God of our Fathers."

Burnham argues further that the above extends to what we have codified today as "Constitutions, Programs, Declarations, Charters and so on", and that such "public documents" are simply too vague to be considered “logical”. What is "freedom" after all? What, exactly, does "liberty" mean? Everyone has a different answer or explanation. Hence - being impossible to achieve, this, too, falls under the sphere of non-logical conduct.

Burnham cites The Atlantic Charter as a prime example of a public document that is non-logical. One of the central aims of the United Nations as proclaimed in the Charter is the "Freedom from Want." "Such a goal," Burnham points out, "is strictly impossible, for man is, as we observed, a wanting animal; there is no possible end to his wants except death, as the philosophers of the East have always insisted."

This non-logical impulse to justify or rationalize our actions ex post-facto ("to logicalize the non-logical" in other words as per Burnham), can be explained by Pareto's distinction between "residues" and "derivations".

In a nutshell, "Residues" can be likened to "Sentiments". Of course, Burnham in analyzing Pareto goes into greater detail in the book, and I'm doing him great disservice here, but for the sake of this review, we will keep it relatively short. "Derivations" work to strengthen these already existing "Residues". "Derivations" consists of platitudes, theories, doctrines, reasoning, and are required in order to quell the masses and to keep the elite in power.

Pareto refers to "humanitarianism" as a "widespread modern derivation", stating in particular that:

"The many varieties of Socialism, Syndicalism, Radicalism, Tolstoyism, Pacifism, Humanitarianism, Solidarism, and so on, form a sum that may be said to belong to the democratic religion, much as there was a sum of numberless sects in the early days of the Christian religion. We are now witnessing the rise and dominance of the democratic religion, just as the men of the first centuries of our era witnessed the rise of the Christian religion and the beginnings of its dominion. The two phenomena present many profoundly significant analogies. To get at their substance we have to brush derivations aside and reach down to residues."

After Burnham helps us recognize the mechanisms in which the elite rely on to keep themselves in power, he moves on to perhaps the most interesting aspect of his book.

Since Pareto, too, recognizes that the study of politics is in reality the study of the ruling classes (as per Mosca), and along with it - "their origins, development, composition, structure and changes", Pareto recognizes that the elite, though a permanent fixture of society, will always find its composition constantly changing. He calls this "the Circulation of the Elites."

For Pareto, the Elite's composition consists of either Class I ("Foxes") or Class II ("Lions") individuals. The Class I ("Foxes") "live by their wits, and rely on fraud, deceit and shrewdness; they do not have strong attachment to family, church, nation, and traditions, and are not adept in the use of force". The Class II ("Lions") are "able and ready to use force, relying on it rather than brains to solve their problems; are conservative, patriotic, loyal to tradition, and solidly tied to supra-individual groups like family, Church or nation." Pareto identifies Athens as being populated with Class I individuals in its elite, and Sparta being populated with Class II individuals in its elite.

Class II individuals make up the bulk of the masses and usually come into power after war or revolution. Under Class II leadership, discipline is enforced and society becomes stagnant. Over time, lacking the necessary wit to maintain power, a huge chunk of Class II types are replaced by the more conniving Class I types. Under Class I rule, society flourishes; the economy does well; the arts and culture of the society under their charge develops further, but Class I types - usually having no strong ties to the nation under their charge and lacking patriotism - inevitably fall into laxity and subsequently corruption. This laxity and corruption weakens the rule of the Class I types. Being averse to using force means that Class I’s hold on power becomes untenable, and Class II returns to power through war or revolution. Rinse and repeat.

This is the circulation of the elites. This has happened throughout history and will happen again.

Pareto's Circulation of Elites ties in with Machiavelli's great quote from the 'History of Florence':

"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 honour and good success."

Thus, politics ultimately condemns humanity to reside in this feedback loop for eternity.