29/07/2009  Dan Leighton blogs on the republican legacy left by Machiavelli and its relevance to the current political climate.  

Richard Reeves and I have a piece in this week’s New Statesman spreading the word on Machiavelli’s civic republican credentials. We use the publication of a new translation of The Prince to discuss one of Machiavelli’s less infamous works, the Discourses on Livy. The Discourses is an influential work on republican freedom, and particularly relevant to the current moment.

The generations of radicals influenced by the Discourses - from James Harrington and John Milton to Rousseau and the American Founding Fathers  - all sought to reclaim Machiavelli in a bid to bolster their own claims against arbitrary and unjust power. This still-vibrant tradition has much to offer both left and right as they emerge from the faltering neo-Liberal political space.

As Stuart White recently argued at Next Left, a resurgent version of republican thinking is redrawing the ideological map after New Labour.  He cites The Liberal Republic, a Demos pamphlet,  as a form of “centre republicanism”, which intersects with—but is less radical than—his preferred “left republicanism”. Important differences not withstanding, these position both engage with a form of “liberty before liberalism” first promulgated by Machiavelli. Particularly influential during the tumultuous 17th and 18th centuries, this "neo-Roman" ideal was eclipsed by the now dominant liberal ideal.

The liberal rendering of liberty as being “left alone”, particularly by the state, took wing in the early days of industrial capitalism, as an ideal of profit-seeking entrepreneurs and professionals. But Phillip Pettit has forcefully argued that the classic liberal ideal does “not reach beyond the sector of opinion and interest with which it was first associated”. For the powerless, being left alone is far from ideal: it means insecurity, lack of status, and the need to “tread a careful path in the neighbourhood of the strong.” To address this considerable blind spot, the republican ideal requires not simply the absence of interference but the incapacity of others to practice it.  Republican politics turns on how all citizens can be free from the fear of unpredictable interference, so “they can organize their affairs on a systematic basis with a large measure of tranquility”.

Over the last thirty years, we have seen a resurgence of the classical liberal ideal. The rhetoric of neo-liberalism lionized maximum freedom of maneuver for markets and heroic business leaders, while castigating the attempts of either the state or unions to constrain them.  From a Republican perspective the current crises in Westminster and the City can be seen as an extreme manifestation of what happens when we opt to leave the powerful alone.

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