Whether the Guard of Freedom May Be Settled More Securely, in the People or in the Great; and Which Has Greater Cause for Tumult, He Who Wishes to Acquire or He Who Wishes to Maintain
Chapter Five of Book One also reveals
an interesting theory about the connection between a state’s domestic policies
and institutions and its foreign policy.
After a lengthy
discussion of the topic in the title—should the state trust the “guard of
liberty” in the ambitious but smaller upper class, or in the masses, who due to
lack of power or lack of drive seek only to be left alone?—Machiavelli
ultimately decides that it depends on the state’s foreign affairs. Does the state, Machiavelli asks, wish to
become “a Republic which wants to create an Empire, as Rome”? Or would it prefer to simply “maintain
itself” and stay within its present borders?
Moreover, it is
interesting that Machiavelli implicitly connects the concept of empire with a
republican government. The choice he
gives us is not just between an imperial state and a more tranquil one that
stays within its borders, but between a republican
state with imperial ambitions and a tranquil nation ruled by nobility.
This discourse first
implies that republican governments in which the masses play a significant role
tend naturally towards empire. In other
words, there is something inherent in such a republic that tends towards
expansion and annexation of other territories and other peoples. Moreover, since such imperial states are
largely ethnically and politically heterogeneous as more territory is added to
the empire, they would seem to erode the underpinnings of the republican government
that created the empire in the first place, as in the Roman example.
Second, this suggests
that a government where the nobility is the “guard of liberty” will not tend
towards expansion. This is ironic, since
in the same text Machiavelli indicates that the nobility is actually ambitious,
aggressive, and covetous compared to the masses. So why would a government led by them be less
inclined to expand abroad? Would we not
expect the very opposite from the ambitious few?
