Machiavelli’S Principals Of Heartlessness And Globalization

Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to his need." 1 Thus wrote NiccolÐ"І Machiavelli almost five hundred years ago in his handbook to the Prince Lorenzo De’ Medici. Whether Machiavelli wrote these words in a desperate attempt to win a position as advisor or whether he hoped in truth to trap the prince with false advice we can only guess from afar. Yet his book offers both advice and food for thought for today. In the last chapter of the book he offered a dream for a new Italian Moses, someone to free Italy from foreign control. Whether this was Machiavelli’s passionate dream or simply bait for the prince, we are now embarking on what may well be the opposite: the selling out of our own country to foreigners in the dream of one unified North America. It is exactly what Prime Minister John A. Macdonald called "veiled treason" in 1891. 2 If you, Mr Mulroney, are to continue in this decision Machiavelli’s principals of heartlessness and purpose may be invaluable.

Machiavelli warns when a principality invites a new ruler in, expecting to improve their situation they will likely be disappointed and then rebel against the ruler. In Machiavelli’s time this would have meant a full and bloody rebellion, but think how much easier it is now! The people have only to vote at the election, and do not need to remind you that in the most recent election you had only 43% of the vote. The majority of the people are against you, and this is dangerous.

What is it you promise the people, and can you provide? You need not fear giving your word lightly, and I doubt anyone today truly expects you to keep all your promises. Yet still there must be something for you to offer in the end. "The common people are always impressed by appearances and results. In this way there are only common people, and there is no room for the few when the many are supported by the state." (101)

The immediate problem with NAFTA, as I see it, is a shift in the tax burden from the manufacturers to the people. Retired judge Marjorie Montgomery Bowker has suggested that by 1998, when NAFTA will be fully implemented our lost revenues will be 24 billion.4 Second we will have to remove the manufactures sales tax (MST) so that our manufacturers will not be at a disadvantage with the American ones. In order to make up for the lost revenue we have the proposed GST.

Now Machiavelli was not presented with this exact situation, but he spoke of a similar one. He writes that "if you want to acquire a reputation for generosity, therefore, you have to be ostentatiously lavish; and a prince acting in that fashion will soon squander all his resources, only to be forced in the end, if he wants to maintain his reputation, to lay excessive burdens on the people, to impose extortionate taxes, and to do everything else he can to raise money." Mr Mulroney, I fear that although our methods of generosity and tax are not the same as they were in Machiavelli’s time, the end will be the same. You have promised that the agreement will deal generously with the people at a time when you will have to tax them higher, and they will hate you for that. Hatred is yet another thing Machiavelli warns against, and he reminds us that "above all a prince must abstain from the property of others; because men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

How can these things be avoided? "A prince must be slow to take action, and must watch that he does not become afraid of his own shadow; his behavior must be tempered by humanity and prudence so that overconfidence does not make him rash or excess distrust make him unbearable." (96) In quoting this am I advising you to abandon your plan? No, I am not but only warning of some of the dangers to come.

Nor am I advising you to postpone your plan. Necessary cruelty must be done and the people will eventually forget. Now Machiavelli warns that this cruelty should be done at once so the prince does not have to "renew them every day". Yet I would suggest in this case, the contrary. We are not dealing with mass executions or with the violent confiscating of resources as Machiavelli was. So instead we may implement all changes over a length of time, blaming little things on changes in international marketplaces so that the people do not connect everything together.

In another section of Machiavelli’s book, where he write that "Men in general judge by their eyes rather than by their hands; because everyone is in a position to watch, few are in a position to come in close touch with you. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are. And those few dare not gainsay the many who are backed by the state." (101) Surely our own propaganda campaigns will help assure people to trust what we say. There are only ever a small number of people who insist on discovering for themselves what is really happening in the world. As long as we don’t link the GST to NAFTA it is unlikely they will.

In chapter seven of his book Machiavelli refers to Cesare Borgia whom came to his throne by the help of a cruel Remirro de Orco. Remirro’s cruelty led the people