On Machiavelli on Colonial Boomerangs and Bonapartism

A few weeks ago, I digressed a bit on the pre-history of boomerang effects (recall here; and here). On various social media people alerted me to even earlier discussions, especially by Constant and the French debates over Algeria in the 1830s. This raised in me a suspicion that it may well be a trope of republican analysis going back to Machiavelli.

As it happens, at the suggestion of Steve Davies, I am reading Joseph A. Tainter’s (1988 [2017]) The Collapse of Complex Societies. You will hear more from me on it because it is rather important as such and especially given my interest in articulating the nature and necessity of synthetic philosophy (about which another time more). While criticizing Machiavelli for offering a ‘mystical’ account of collapse, Tainter writes on p. 75,

Machiavelli (Discourses on Livy) argued that the Romans won their early wars by their virtue, but when later this virtue was lacking and the armies had lost their ancient valor, the Western Empire was destroyed. Rome came to this condition when it was corrupted by its colonies. A great power becomes dependent on its colonies, and thus a colony itself (Mansfield 1979 211-12, 215).

This seems like a nice description of a colonial boomerang.

As an aside, Tainter treats ‘virtue’ as “ancient manners.” And so attributes to Machiavelli the idea that innovative mores adopted from their colonies was the cause of collapse. For Tainter this counts as no explanation at all because it fails to explain why the change was harmful. Somewhat unfortunately, Tainter is wrong to treat ‘virtue’ in this way, so his criticism of Machiavelli is mistaken. (He doesn’t get it from Mansfield.) But that’s for a different occasion.

Be that as it may, in the quoted passage, Tainter is referring to Mansfield’s (1979) Machiavelli's new modes and orders: A study of the Discourses on Livy. (Cornell) I think it’s fair to say that Tainter accurately summarizes the intent of Mansfield’s argument, especially p. 215: “Rome was defeated by the barbarians, but not until after it had lost its virtue: Rome lost its virtue when it was corrupted by its colonies and became the victim of its own unique method of expansion. It acquired its empire by offering a specious equality to friends whom it betrayed and lost it by relying on the specious submission of subjects by whom it was betrayed.” (This is treated as a comment on Discourses II.9)

In context, Mansfield makes it clear he thinks that according to Machiavelli Rome became a colony of the Roman Catholic church in particular: “They [the modern Florentines] borrowed and inherited this method not, of course, from the Roman colonics, but from the Roman Church, which surrendered to Rome for the sake of defense and which Machiavelli chooses to portray as a colony, as the colony, of Rome.” (Emphasis in original.) Mansfield offers this as a comment on Discourses II.10)

As non-Straussians go, I am not especially hostile to Straussian interpretations. I think it is pretty obvious that esotericism was both diagnosed and practiced throughout the history of philosophy. Anyone that reflects on the formal and informal practices of censorship in our own age does not need further convincing.

But I have to admit that when I re-read Machiavelli, Discourses II.9-10, I did not really discern an analysis of a colonial boomerang. So for me it’s not yet obvious that Machiavelli diagnoses it. Of course, neither Mansfield nor Tainter uses this terminology, so if there is any criticism of their argument implied here, it’s a modest one.

However, Machiavelli does discuss the Fall of Rome in II.8:

The third dangerous war was when the Germans and Cimbri came into Italy; after defeating several Roman armies, they were defeated by Marius. The Romans, then, won these three very dangerous wars. Nor was slight ability required to win them, because later, when Roman ability failed and her armies lost their ancient courage, her empire was destroyed by such migrating peoples-the Goths, the Vandals and the like-who conquered the entire Western Empire. (From Allan Gilbert’s translation in the Chief Works.)

As it happens, I taught The Prince a few weeks ago. And I was reminded of the following passage:

But men in their imprudence often enter upon some policy which at the moment pleases them without envisaging the poison underneath it, as I said above of the hectic fever. So a prince who does not recognize the ills in his state when they spring up is not truly wise; but this power is given to very few. On considering the chief cause for the fall of the Roman Empire, we find it was solely that she took to hiring Gothic mercenaries. After that beginning, the Empire's forces steadily failed, for she stripped away all her own vigor to give it to the Goths. (The Prince, Chapter 13, from Alan Gilbert’s translation in the Chief Works.)

In The Prince, it’s pretty clear that for Machiavelli, Rome’s problem is reliance on mercenaries rather than one’s own arms (a citizen-army). And rather than a mystical explanation, this is highly practical. Good arms are the source of power. And Rome collapsed after its rulers lacked reliable access to good armies.

Now, Mansfield treats the Germans as “similar people” to “the Goths, Vandals,” (p. 212). And so the once defeated eventually became dangerous. This is a kind of boomerang, but not quite colonial. (Lurking here is a critique of the failed pacification of the Germans by the Romans, but I think it’s a mistake to treat that as identical to a colonial boomerang.) I could have stopped here because that’s all I have to say about Machiavelli and boomerangs today.

However, as it happens in the Discourses (1.5), Marius is treated as the source of ruin of Rome. To be anachronistic, Machiavelli treats Marius here as an instance of Bonapartism, a hero of the people who avenges them against the nobility (“Nor was this enough for [the people], because, moved by the same madness, they were in time ready to idolize men whom they saw qualified to beat down the nobility; ”see also I.37), and, thus, a symptom of corruption (III.8). Machiavelli treats the rise of Marius as evidence of Rome’s corruption. But this is not the effect of their habit of sending out colonies over the conquered, but rather a failure to renew the laws against the “ambition and pride of the citizens” who wish the rule for their own good rather than serve the common good (III.1 & III.24).