In Discourses Machiavelli said republics are able to preserve popular sovereignty and resist corruption because “they do not tolerate any of their citizens to style himself a gentleman, or to live like one” (p. 72). Machiavelli then goes on to say a citizen is a gentleman if “they live in luxury without working. Their income arises from their estates, but they do not have to worry about cultivating them or going to any other trouble to make ends meet. Such people are pernicious influences in any republic and, indeed, in any part of the world” (p.73).
The “Gentleman” Machiavelli warned against in Discourses can be compared to the top 1% of the United States. These people represent the social inequality that Machiavelli warned against. They possess the majority of wealth in this country which puts them in a position of power. They have the resources to influence public policy to benefit the elite while the vast majority continue to struggle. If Machiavelli were alive today to see the condition the United States is in, he would be astonished to see how corruption and greed have completely taken over our political system. It is clear many people in this country want to reform the current system but have not found an effective method of doing so. Machiavelli said people of his time were “bitterly hostile to those lords and gentleman who do exist in their region. If by chance some of them fall into their hands, they regard them as germs of corruption and the cause of every possible immorality, and kill them” (p.73).
With the recent Occupy movement, we can see how some people of today choose to handle these "Gentlemen." Additionally, hacker groups like anonymous have been known to go after them with breaking into their emails and exposing them. Obviously we cannot murder these people and therefore people today are referring to methods such as the aforementioned and hope that the general public will handle the rest.In my opinion (and most peoples) the most important group of any society is bourgeois (middle class) and as long as they remain intact, all is well. But if they shrink (like it has been) movements such as Occupy and Anonymous will continue to take place
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ReplyDeleteWhen I first read this passage about "gentlemen," the same comparison between today's elite and the gentlemen of Machiavelli's time came to mind. However, when I thought about it further I came to a different conclusion. As you mentioned, Machiavelli defines a gentleman as someone who lives in luxury without having to work. However, many of the 1% do work (CEOs, bankers, political elite). There are very wealthy people that do not have to work, but I doubt they are the majority. Machiavelli also believes gentlemen (who are gentlemen because they do not work) make it impossible for a republic to be a successful form of government because they cause corruption. But I would argue today that the portion of the top 1% that do work are the ones who cause corruption in our political system rather than those that do not work. An example of this may be CEOs of tobacco companies or Monsanto influencing policy makers to pass legislation that benefits their business interest rather than the public. While someone like Paris Hilton causes very little government corruption. I still agree that the top 1% are a source of corruption, but I'm not sure Machiavelli's definition of a gentleman applies, since many of the top 1% does work. On the other hand, to play devil's advocate to my own argument, this all depends on how Machiavelli defines work as well as the other qualities he attributes to gentlemen. I could not find a passage that clarifies these things, but I would be interested if anyone else was able to.
ReplyDeleteTo add to your argument, Machiavelli also says the following in regards to gentlemen and why a republic cannot exist where there are gentlemen, "For such types of men are totally hostile to a civilized way of life" (pg 73). The actions of the top 1% today always seem to be in their own best interest, regardless of the impact this has on the masses. Going back to the tobacco company CEO, they are willing to continue to sell items that hurt the health of many in order to maintain their own lifestyle. They continue to sacrifice the health of the public rather than to live like to public. This seems very uncivilized in my opinion.
I agree with Kristine Farwell’s argument that many of the elite we see in the United States do work and there for break the argument that the elite today are the elite that Machiavelli spoke of. What if those elite were still alive today? Maybe they are a group people don’t recognize as a key part in a society. I would say that it is the citizen outside of the law that closely resembles the elite of Machiavelli’s time. For the people Machiavelli describes as gentlemen, are the people that the citizens of those renaissance republics would not tolerate, because of the life style that they chose to live. The gentlemen for the renaissance are the criminals of today by the definition given.
ReplyDeleteMachiavelli says a citizen is a gentleman if “they live in luxury without working. Their income arises from their estates, but they do not have to worry about cultivating them or going to any other trouble to make ends meet. Such people are pernicious influences in any republic and, indeed, in any part of the world” (p.73).
There is one huge example that comes to mind, but first I have to explain one thing. Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency introduced as open source software in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a cryptocurrency, so-called because it uses cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money. It also functions without an intermediate of any central recognized authority. It is electronic money.
The example: a college kid used Bitcoins to start a web site that sold every type of drug available, none of which were legal substances. He made this web site and the drug distributers would get a payment on Bitcoin and then mail the drugs to the buyers. The problem: the site was untraceable because of a program called Silk Road, which basically made it impossible to find the person in charge of the site, or who received the Bitcoins, the distributors. The drug site creator was finally found by the FBI in a Starbucks after a few years. He essentially sat and drank coffee while people bought drugs from his site and did not have to worry about working. He was a college student that made almost 80 million dollars drinking coffee. This is a prime example of what Machiavelli’s Gentlemen would be in today’s society, it may not be that they are the elite to all but I believe that there are those people who would say he is an elite of today based solely Machiavellian description.
The elite Machiavelli describes do live today and the new definition of the elite that we have today may have been impossible for Machiavelli to have foreseen, because I assume he was hoping for the people to have a conflict by now and make laws to stop the oppression. Also, it’s still hard for even me to believe that only 1% of this country owns 80% of it. How could Machiavelli have predicted that?