Book Review - James Burnham - The Machiavellians - Defenders of Freedom
Burnham’s “The Machiavellians” 1 begins with an investigation in Dante’s political writings full of deductions from fairly arbitrary starting points and contrasts this to the approach of Machiavelli. Burnham then proceeds to trace what he believes to be the influence of a nascent, accidentally scientific approach of Machiavelli towards politics in more recent times. He explores how this heritage was adopted and extended by Mosca, Sorel, Michels and Pareto. Some of them working still under the influence of tumultuous times. The book itself was published in 1943 and obviously written under the influence of the waging WW2 and takes a quite sober view on politics and power.
Mosca
Mosca published “The Ruling Class” in 1895. The ruling class is a minority of the people the rules the majority. Mosca reasons that there will always be such a minority. For him, the existence of a ruling class seems to be the stable equilibrium. If you envision a single ruler, that ruler will need some people to rule: “[T]he man who is at the head of the state would certainly not be able to govern without the support of a numerous class to enforce respect for his orders and to have them carried out; and granting that he can make one individual, or indeed many individuals, in the ruling class feel the weight of his power, he certainly cannot be at odds with the class as a whole or do away with it. Even if that were possible, he would at once be forced to create another class, without the support of which action on his part would be completely paralyzed.”
But such a class would also be necessary, if we start from a point of dispersed power: “If it is easy to understand that a single individual cannot command a group without finding within the group a minority to support him, it is rather difficult to grant, as a constant and natural fact, that minorities rule majorities, rather than majorities minorities.[…] In reality the dominion of an organized minority, obeying a single impulse, over the unorganized majority is inevitable. The power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority, who stands alone before the totality of the organized minority. At the same time, the minority is organized for the very reason that it is a minority. A hundred men acting uniformly in concert, with a common understanding, will triumph over a thousand men who are not in accord and can therefore be dealt with one by one. Meanwhile it will be easier for the former to act in concert and have a mutual understanding simply because they are a hundred and not a thousand. It follows that the larger the political community, the smaller will the proportion of the governing minority to the governed majority be, and the more difficult will it be for the majority to organize for reaction against the minority.”
For Mosca, this is also true for what we call democracies: “Nor is this rule at all suspended in the case of governments resting in form upon universal suffrage. “What happens in other forms of government—namely, that an organized minority imposes its will on the disorganized majority—happens also and to perfection, whatever the appearances to the contrary, under the representative system. When we say that the voters ‘choose’ their representative, we are using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters, and, if that phrase should seem too inflexible and too harsh to fit some cases, we might qualify it by saying that his friends have him elected. In elections, as in all other manifestations of social life, those who have the will and, especially, the moral, intellectual and material means to force their will upon others take the lead over the others and command them.”
I think it’s fair to say that Mosca anticipated what we call “the deep state” or “x-industrial-complexes” today: “Below the highest stratum in the ruling class, there is always, even in autocratic systems, another that is much more numerous and comprises all the capacities for leadership in the country. Without such a class any sort of social organization would be impossible. The higher stratum would not in itself be sufficient for leading and directing the activities of the masses. In the last analysis, therefore, the stability of any political organism depends on the level of morality, intelligence and activity that this second stratum has attained.… Any intellectual or moral deficiencies in this second stratum, accordingly, represent a graver danger to the political structure, and one that is harder to repair, than the presence of similar deficiencies in the few dozen persons who control the workings of the state machine.…” A hidden, unaccountable and unelected group of organized people. I think that’s the starting point of every conspiracy theory… and unfortunately of every conspiracy.
In this view, only power can constrain power. This is in contrast to the doctrine of Rousseau and believes that social organization provides for the reciprocal constraint of human individuals by one another. This constraint makes them better, not by destroying the wicked instincts, by accustoming them to controlling their wicked instincts.
The freest country, in Mosca’s view is the country where the rights of the governed are best protected against arbitrary caprice and tyranny on the part of the ruler. This protection is called “juridical defense” by Mosca. It means government by law and due process - nor merely formally, in the words of the constitutions or status, but in fact; the existence of a set of impersonal restrictions on those who hold power, and correlatively a set of protections for the individuals against the state and those who have power.
Freedom is thus the product of conflict and difference, not of unity and harmony. From this perspective, a danger of “idealism”, utopianism and demagogy becomes apparent. Most ideologies envision a world, where justice and “the good society” will be achieved once the absolute triumph of their doctrine has been achieved. Unfortunately, the absolute triumph of any side and any doctrine whatsoever is far more likely to spell tyranny for “everybody else”.
Sorel
Gorges Sorel published “Reflections on Violence” in 1912. For him, violence is at the root of any larger society. Laws are enforced at the barrel of a gun and the position of the elite is secured and protected by the overwhelming force of the state. For sure, much has shifted to fraud instead of brutality, but it is still there. And political parties are part of the machinery of oppression. If the socialists party took over governmental power, this would not at all mean the introduction of socialism, of a free and classless society, but simply the substitution of a new elite.
Sorel pondered on the relationship between myth, violence and politics. Myth and violence, reciprocally acting on each other, produce not senseless cruelty and suffering, but sacrifice and heroism. Myths form the narrative that can make violence seem a sensible thing to do, even the morally right thing to do. He thought, that only an all-embracing myth can arouse the masses to uncompromising, i.e. violent revolutionary action. No detailed rationalistic program, no careful calculation of pros and cons, not estimates of results and consequences, can be effective in moving the masses. To the contrary, the effect of such a program is to paralyze the independent action of the workers and to place power in the hands of leaders who devise and manipulate the programs.
For Sorel, a myth must not be judged rationally in regard to what it claims, but with regards on how it makes people act in the present; any attempt to discuss how far it can be taken literally as future history is devoid of sense. It is plain that the ideal will in truth never be achieved or even approximated. This in no way detracts from the power of the myth, nor does it alter the fact that only these myths can inspire social groups to action which, though they never gain the formal idea, yet do bring about great socials transformations.
Paradoxically, the ostensible pacifists may lead to more realized violence. Utopian ideas, where all strife is solved an all people a harmonious often try to eradicate the dissenters. It’s a fallacious, yet often firmly held believe that by denying the social role of violence, violence is somehow overcome. An elite that claims to be peaceful, might just want anybody else to abstain from violence, while they yield it in an institutionalized and impersonal way.
Michels
Robert Michels formulated the “Iron Law of Oligarchy"in his 1911 book “Political Parties”. The iron law of oligarchy states that there will always be leaders with power. You can change who it is, you cannot change that they are.
Equalitarian revolutionists - communards or anarchists or syndicalists or jacobin - can eliminate titles, but they cannot eliminate leaders. For Michels, an organization is able to keep alive and to function only through its leaders. Social life cannot dispense with organization. The mechanical, technical, psychological, and cultural constitution organization require leadership, and guarantee the leaders rather than the mass shall exercise control. The autocratic tendencies are neither arbitrary nor accidental nor temporary, but inherent in the nature of organization.
Often the mere fact that an individual has held office in the past is thought by him and by the members to him a moral claim on it in the future; or if not on the same office, then on some other leadership post in the organization; it becomes almost unthinkable that those who have served the organization so well, or even not so well, in the past should be thrown aside. More fundamental to the emergence of an oligarchy within an organization than the right to office is for Michels the psychological need felt by the masses for leadership.
For him, this poses a lethal problem to the concept of democracy at it is instantiated in representative democracies. Logically, no one can represent a sovereign in a decision, because to be sovereign means to make one’s own decisions. Thus, the fact of leadership, obscured by the theory of representation, negates the principle of democracy. Bonapartism can be regarded as the logical culmination of democracy, once the principle of representation is granted. Bonapartist leaders claims, with more than a show of justification, to be the most perfect embodiment of the will of the group, the people. Germany, Russia and Italy (of 1943) have fully matured this mode of “democracy by representation”, other states were on the way towards it. Mature Bonapartism is a popular, a democratic despotism, founded on democratic doctrine, and, at least in its initiation, committed to democratic forms.
Given the arguments of Mosca, it should not be too surprising that this concentration of power was devastating to the life and liberty of people.
Pareto
Pareto considers a person’s conduct as logical, when her action is motivated by a deliberately held goal of purpose; when the goal is possible, when the steps or means she takes to reach the goal are in fact appropriate for reaching it. Else, it is not.
For Pareto, there are surprisingly few instances when political action is “logical” by the definition. Instead, it is mostly driven, by “themes”. The themes that are relatively constant factors and change only little or not at all from age to age or from culture to culture, he calls “residues”. Rapidly changing factors are called derivations.
Residues
Class 1: Instinct of Combinations. A tendency which leads human beings to combine and manipulate various elements taken arbitrarily from experience. Many magical practices originate from this residue. “System - making”; theologies, metaphysics and ideologies. Accounts for derivations, expressing man’s need to make his own behavior seem rational.
Class 2: Group persistence: When any combination has been formed, forces come into play to keep that combination sustained and persisting. Feeling of family, tribe, team or feeling that some abstractions are permanent and objectively existing entities. Usually associated with willingness to use force to maintain the solidity and persistence.
Class 3: Need for expressing Sentiments by External Acts. “Need to do something”, even, though they have not the slightest idea whether what they do will affect the conditions favorably.
Class 4: Residues Connected with Sociality: Group conformity, distrust of innovation, willingness to sacrifice life or comfort or property, social ranking and hierarchy, need for peer approval.
Class 5: Integrity of Individual and his Appurtenance. Feelings that lead men to guard their personal integrity. Strong feeling against any serious alteration. Leads to vengeance.
Class 6: Sex. Theories and literature and moral rules used to disguise and distort the sex impulse
Derivations
Derivations are the concrete instantiations of “residues” that are concrete to a given time. We would probably call them memes today.
Class 1: Assertion. Simplest and most direct. “Honesty is the best policy”. “Golden Rule”.
Class 2: Authority. Appeal to authority of the time. “Bible”, “Marx” etc.
Class 3: Accords with Sentiment or Principles: Men convert sentiments into abstractions and principles. Derive power from feeling not from logic or scientific rigor. The will of the people
Class 4: Verbal proofs. Verbal confusion and fallacies, ambiguous terms, metaphors etc.
These concrete instantiation are only “effective”, insofar as they reinforce already existing residues. The seeming influence of the derivation is in reality the influence of the residue which it expresses. It is for this reason that the " “logical” refutation of theories used in politics never accomplishes anything so long as the residues remain intact. Scientists proved with the greatest ease that the Nazi racial theories were altogether false, but that had no effect at all in getting Nazis to abandon those theories; and even if they had abandoned them, they would merely have substituted some new derivation to express the same residues. Theologians, metaphysicists, philosophers, theorists of politics, law, and ethics, do not ordinarily accept the order indicated. They are inclined to assign first place to derivations. What we call residues are in their eyes axioms or dogmas, and the purpose [that is, the supposed goal of conduct which is in fact non-logical] is just the conclusion of a logical reasoning. But since they are not as a rule in any agreement on the derivation, they argue about it till they are blue in the face and think that they can change social conditions by proving a derivation fallacious. That is all an illusion on their part. They fail to realize that their hagglings never reach the majority of men, who could not make head or tail to them anyhow, and who in fact disregard them save as articles of faith to which they assent in deference to certain residues.”
Pareto differentiate utility of a community and utility for the community. Factors which give a community survival value, strength and endurance against other communities, are a utility of the community. Internal welfare, happiness and satisfaction utility for the community. Unfortunately, these two concepts do not necessarily coincide.
Burnham
Burnham integrates a lot of the thinking of the aforementioned “Machivellians”. Human society is not a homogeneous thing, that individuals are physically, morally and intellectually different. The character of a society is above all the character of its elite. Predictions about its future are based upon evidence drawn from the study of the composition and structure of its elite. Special principles of selection, different in different societies, affect the composition of the elite so that it no longer includes all those persons best fitted for social rule. Sometimes, nepotism or the “aristocratic” principles weakens the elite. If they go far enough, they are corrected sharply by social revolution. Burnham differentiates people mostly driven by residue of Class 1. These are open for change and novelty, speculation and innovation. They are not adept at using force, however. People primarily driven by Class 2 residues are ready and able to use force. They are conservative, patriotic, loyal to tradition.
Burnham believes that the “ideal” composition of society would be a society, where Class 2 residues is widespread in the masses, Class 1 residues are concentrated in the elite, but not exclusively so, and where the elite is open to changes.
From a Machiavellian point of view, a social revolution means a comparatively rapid shift in the composition and structure of the elite and in the mode of its relation to the non-elite. It is possible to state the conditions under which such a rapid shift takes place. The principal of these conditions are the following:
When the institutional structure, and the elite which has the ruling position within this structure, are unable to handle possibilities opened up by technological advances and by the growth, for whatever reason, of new social forces.
When a considerable percentage of the ruling class devotes little attention to the business of ruling, and turns its interests to such fields as culture, art, philosophy, and the pursuit of sensuous pleasure.
When an elite is unable or unwilling to assimilate rising new elements from the masses or from its own lower ranks.
When large sections of the elite lose confidence in themselves and the legitimacy of their own rule; and when in both elite and non-elite there is a loss of faith in the political formulas and myths that have held the social structure together.
When the ruling class, or much of it, is unable or unwilling to use force in a firm and determined way, and instead tries to rely almost exclusively on manipulation, compromise, deceit, and fraud.
For Burnham, liberty or juridical defense, moreover, is summed up and focused in the right of opposition, the right of opponents of the currently governing elite to express publicly their opposition views and to organize to implement those views. This, instead of any mythological idea about “self-governance” would be the core of democracy properly understood in the real world. We only have Moscan “juridical defense”, i.e. liberty and democracy, when a measure of security for the individual exists, which protects him from the arbitrary and irresponsible exercise of personally held power.
The crucial difference that freedom makes to a society, according to Burnham, is found in the fact that the existence of a public opposition is the only effective check on the power of the governing elite.
Supposedly, only the Machiavellians were willing to tell this truth about power. Other writers have at most told the truth only about groups other than the ones for which they themselves speak. Burnham believes that the Machiavellians present the complete record: “the primary object, in practice, of all rulers is to serve their own interest, to maintain their own power and privilege. There are no exceptions. No theory, no promises, no morality, no amount of good will, no religion will restrain power. Neither priests nor soldiers, neither labor leaders nor businessmen, neither bureaucrats nor feudal lords will differ from each other in the basic use which they will seek to make of power. Individual saints, exempt in individual intention from the law of power, will nevertheless be always bound to it through the disciples, associates, and followers to whom they cannot, in organized social life, avoid being tied. Only power restrains power. That restraining power is expressed in the existence and activity of oppositions.”
According to Burnham, we should feel fortunate for the odd fact “that the restraining influence of an opposition much exceeds its apparent strength. As anyone with experience in any organization knows, even a small opposition, provided it really exists and is active, can block to a remarkable degree the excesses of the leadership. But when all opposition is destroyed, there is no longer any limit to what power may do. A despotism, any kind of despotism, can be benevolent only by accident.” In a strange sense, “Liberty of Opposition” is the indirect route through which self-government of the masses mediated through the struggle of elites, becomes somewhat possible.
Summary
The book gives an interesting perspective on the question of power in politics. I find it rather dark and almost cynical at times. But that’s probably what you should expect, when you venture to read Machiavellians.