In Machiavelli's book The Prince, under the heading of "How Princes Should Honor Their Word," we read that great things have been achieved by those "who have given their word lightly, who have known how to trick men with their cunning, and who, in the end, have overcome those abiding by honest principles." One is reminded of a line written by James Fenimore Cooper: "Contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed." This helps explain the significance of something John Adams wrote to his wife during the American Revolution, at a time when chivalry was still practiced: "I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman." Men want what they want, and it can be an ugly business. Ambrose Bierce definied politics as, "The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." John Dryden poetized:
"In friendship false, implacable in hate, resolved to ruin or to rule the state."
Having experienced politics at firsthand, Jonathan Swift wrote that "whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind ... than the whole race of politicians put together." Walt Whitman once described a typical Democratic National Convention as "the meanest kind of ... pimps, malignant conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, customhouse clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels, well-train'd to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-riflers, ... creatures of the President, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, bribers, compromisers ... and born freedom-sellers of the earth." American politics, with all its noble talk of the "common man" and "democracy," has always been a bit unsavory. On October 8, 1882, as his train approached Chicago, the tycoon William Henry Vanderbilt said, "When I want to buy up any politician I always find the anti-monopolists the most purchasable. They don't come so high."
Machiavelli believed that men were weak, and temptation in politics was great. He believed that politicians lie, cheat and betray just as poisonous snakes slither upon the ground, shed their skin and produce venom. "So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honor his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist." To behave otherwise would be suicide. Such was the cynicism of Machiavelli, whose name has become a synonym for knavery. To be fair, Machiavelli also argued that decent and honorable behavior was best. However, it was not always guaranteed to produce the best outcome. Good ends could not always be served by honorable means. "If all men were good," wrote Machiavelli, "this precept would not be good; but because men are wretched creatures who would not keep their word to you, you need not keep your word to them."
And what about democratic politics? Are the people trustworthy? Politicians easily corrupt the public with promises and shameful flatteries. Under democracy moral standards have collapsed, and Intellectual standards are breaking apart. "Men are so simple," wrote Machiavelli, "and so much creatures of circumstance, that the deceiver will never lack dupes." In a democratic age, with the public stupefied by television, with myths in place of facts and ideology in place of moral ideas, politics necessarily becomes a competition in mass corruption, with each party attempting to win public support by avoiding or twisting the truth in accordance with plausible and serviceable fictions. Under such a regime, honesty is inconvenient.
Machiavellian theory suggests that a clever demagogue, employing deception, is democracy's ultimate end. What follows, predictably, is a universal catastrophe (i.e., economic collapse, despotism and war). One thinks back to the final disaster of the Roman Republic, and to Caesarism. A republic conceived as a system of checks and balances succumbs to tyranny. The politicians can promise bread and circuses, and they can deliver, at least for a while. Then comes the man, or the party, with the most extravagant promises of all: to end poverty, war and human misery. Such promises have always been a snare.
Should we blame Machiavelli for advising politicians to save their lives and careers by reciprocal dishonesty? It is not as edifying as the sacrifice of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, but it does maintain blood flow to the head. On the subject of Machiavellian thought, James Burnham wrote one of the best political textbooks of all time - The Machiavellians: Defenders of freedom. Burnham called his book, "A defense of political truth against wishful thinking." It is not a book for moralists who dream of a perfect world. Burnham opens his first chapter by reciting the 1932 Platform of the Democratic Party, which promises: "An immediate and drastic reduction of government expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus and eliminating extravagance, to accomplish a saving of not less than 25% in the cost of the Federal government...."
Did the subsequent Democratic administration (of Franklin Roosevelt) faithfully keep this "covenant with the people"? Not in the least. Roosevelt expanded government. He created useless commissions and offices - the exact opposite of what his party promised. Was the Democratic platform a cynical attempt to deceive? No, says Burnham, it was a case of naïve self-deception. In this instance, the deceiver and dupe were one in the same. The idealists who wrote the Democratic Platform in 1932 believed the party would keep its promises. But, as Machiavelli said, "men are wretched creatures" who cannot keep their word.
A party's promise to save a country succeeds when it crystallizes into popular myth. "The ostensible goals of the formal argument are noble, high minded, and what people often call 'idealistic,'" wrote James Burnham. "This serves to create a favorable emotional response in the reader, to disarm him, to lead him to believe in the 'good will' of the author." But when we examine the soul of the politician we find ambition and expediency at work. The significance of a promise or a policy is not found by taking it at face value. The significance is found in the way it masks the characteristic aims of the politicians themselves: that is, to stay in office, to enjoy certain privileges, etc.
Politics is not what politicians say. It is what they do. And it bares special mention that the dishonesty of Western politicians is petty dishonesty in comparison with the crimes of oriental despots. Here the degree of difference is so great as to represent a difference of kind. The crimes of a corrupt political boss in America are not to be compared with the political crimes of the Chinese, North Koreans, Vietnamese or Russians. The Western politician lies out of weakness, because he is checked and balanced, because he is deluded by his own democratic ideology and cannot break free. On the other side of the world, however, the oriental politician is a monster at large in a monstrous system - a system that produces enormity in lieu of mutual enrichment. The Western politician is a babe in woods compared to a Russian or Chinese politician. Dishonesty in one is not the same as dishonesty in the other. The disparity is due to the disparity in the kind of power that each holds over society. If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the Russian and Chinese leaders are the most dangerous creatures on the planet. The only check on their power comes from America (which they intend to eliminate). Meanwhile, America deludes itself for the sake of political convenience, and will not block Russian and Chinese moves.
It is here that two kinds of political dishonesty meet. The first kind of political dishonesty is weak and compromising, the second is implacable and malignant.
