Saul Alinsky

Since we’re within measurable distance of the end of “The Prince”, I’m casting about for the next subject for Book Club. I’m considering (among others) Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. Stopping off at WikiPedia, I found the following except from the first chapter:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

Now, every part of this is deeply disingenuous, deeply stupid, or both, but I want to focus on the middle sentence: “The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power.”, and briefly explain why it is wrong in every important respect.

Haves, Have-Nots, and Princes

To begin with, N.M.’s world was not simply divided into “haves” and “have-nots”. His society was far more complicated in general, but in particular, princes were not members of the “have” class; they were absolute rulers literally without peers in their realms. The “haves” were the nobles, barons, and wealthy and influential men of their states, but those men were not princes. Alinsky’s dichotomy makes sense only if you consider the few dozen princes of Italy to be the “haves” and everyone else, no matter how wealthy or powerful, to be the “have-nots”. (I.e. there was exactly one “have” in Milan, exactly one in Florence, exactly one in Rome, etc.) This is foolishness.

Power

N.M. does devote much attention to what is required for a prince to maintain his state, but he is not primarily concerned with the question of how to keep power away from the “have-nots”; N.M. is concerned with how to prevent the collapse of a state into disorder and chaos (which he considers the worst of all possible outcomes) or the conquest of a prince’s state by another prince. “The Prince” cannot be fairly read as a handbook for keeping power in the hands of princes, and away from the people.

Standing Up for the Little Guy

In fact, N.M. writes frequently (e.g. in chapters IX and XIX) of the desire of the elites to plunder the people, and how the prince must oppose this desire if he is to maintain his state. In other words, N.M. actually advises the prince to take the part of the “have-nots” against the “haves”. Furthermore, N.M. argues again and again and again (e.g. in chapters XVI, XIX, and XXI) that a prince must refrain from robbing and abusing his people; indeed, I suspect that N.M.’s ideal prince would show far more respect for the property and liberty of his subjects than a leftist like Alinsky.

Motivation

It is important to remember that N.M. had no love for princes; his political career was spent in service to the Florentine Republic, and he lost his position when the Medici (whom his family had always opposed) returned to power.

Why then, was “The Prince” written, if not for the vulgar and self-serving reasons Alinsky proposes? N.M. had two reasons. First, he needed a job, a new Medici prince was in power in Florence, and N.M. hoped, with this book, to persuade that prince to give him a job. Second, the fact of the matter was that Italy was ruled (largely) by princes, and that N.M. was heartbroken and enraged that through their (as he saw it) inept rule Italy had been overrun by foreigners. “The Prince” is a call and a guide for the liberation of “Italy from the Barbarians”, as the final chapter puts it. In other words, “The Prince” was explicitly written to take power away from many of those who then held it.

To Sum Up

The world of N.M.’s time was not divided (only) into “haves” and “have-nots”. Even in those cases in which such a division made sense, N.M. often counseled a prince to side with the “have-nots”. N.M. did not favor the simple preservation of the status quo; he wanted to see some of those who held power lose it. N.M. did not aspire to be a prince, nor did he spend his career counseling princes; he was, if anything, a republican.

Alinsky’s statement that “[t]he Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power” indicates that either he did not read the book, or that he did not understand it, or that he found it convenient to lie about it to score cheap, self-congratulatory rhetorical points. This says to me that it will be a challenge for me to write about “Rules for Radicals” without turning every entry into a screed about why I despise Saul Alinsky. I’ll have to think about that.

(Cheap shot: “The Prince” is really about how a prince can build a stable and prosperous state. Since Alinsky sets his book in opposition to “The Prince”, I can only assume he intends for his to teach the reader how to destroy such a state, or how to build an unstable and impoverished one. In that case: Good job!)