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To summarize the word system in a phrase, revolution must be contained within the State: on the one
side, by the terror of anarchy, on the other, by bankruptcy, and -- all things considered -- by general
warfare.
You have already seen, in the rapid indications that I have given you, the important role the art of
speech is summoned to play in modern politics. I am far from disdaining the press, as you will see, and
I need to make use of the grandstand; the essential is to employ against one's adversaries all of the
weapons that they employ against you. Not content to rely upon the violent force of democracy, I
would like to borrow from the subtleties of the law their most learned resources. When one makes
decisions that could appear unjust or reckless, it is essential to know how to enunciate them in good
terms, to support them with the most elevated reasons that derive from morality and the law.
The power of which I dream -- quite far from having barbaric customs, as you can see -- must attract to
it all the forces and the talents of the civilization in the heart of which it lives. It must surround itself
with publicists, lawyers, jurisconsults, practical men and administrators, people who thoroughly know
all the secrets, all the motives of social life; who speak all the languages, who have studied man in all
his milieus. It is necessary to take them everywhere, no matter where, because such people render
astonishing services through the ingenious procedures that they apply to politics. It is necessary to
bring along with them a world of economists, bankers, industrialists, capitalists, men of vision and
millionaires, because everything will actually be resolved by numbers.
As for the principal positions of leadership, the principal departments of power: one must arrange
things so as to give them to men whose antecedents and characters place an abyss between them and
other men, each of whom only expects death or exile in case of a change of government or the
necessity of defending all that exists to their last breaths.
Suppose for an instant that I have at my disposition the different moral and material resources that I
have indicated to you, and that you give me a nation to rule: you will understand! In Spirit of the
Laws, you regarded it as a capital point to not change the character of a nation[5] when one wants to
preserve its original vigor: so, I would only need 20 years to transform the most indomitable European
character in the most complete manner and to render it as docile to tyranny as the smallest people of
Asia.
Montesquieu: By enjoying yourself, you have added a [new] chapter to The Prince. I will not discuss
your doctrines, whatever they are; I will only make an observation. It is obvious that you have not kept
the promise that you made; the use of all these means presupposes the existence of absolute power, and
I asked you precisely how you could establish it in the political societies that rest upon liberal
institutions.
Machiavelli: Your observation is perfectly just and I do not intend to escape from it. This debut was
only a preface.
Montesquieu: I put before you a State founded on representative institutions, a monarchy or a republic;
I spoke to you of a nation long familiar with liberty and I asked you how, starting here, you could
return to absolute power.
Machiavelli: Nothing could be easier.
Montesquieu: Let us see.
[1] A nearly perfect and thoroughly startling foreshadowing of the Situationist International's theories
of recuperation ("snatching"), spectacle ("dazzle it") and everyday life ("artificial institutions").
[2] A hundred-armed monster in Greek mythology.
[3] This is a departure from or disagreement with Karl Marx's prediction that capitalism involved the
systematic and unavoidable impoverishment of the working classes.
[4] Author's note: The Prince, Chapter XVII. [Translator's note: This appears to be a mistaken citation.
It is in Chapter XI, not Chapter XVII, that Machiavelli discusses Pope Alexander VI Borgia.]
[5] Author's note: Spirit of the Laws, Book XIX, Chapter V. [Translator's note: "It is the business of the
legislature to follow the spirit of the nation, when it is not contrary to the principles of government; for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]