"Then you would agree that Machiavelli's advice to the Prince was a
treatise on moral virtue?"
This is actually a standard interpretation, but not because its advocatres think that self interest is a form of morality.
jks ------------
JKS, you are showing some ironic deficiency here. But, yes, exactly, that was the point. Virtue was defined in terms of power and self-interest, and not moral rectitude. However, the Prince and the Discourses are very cagey and are littered with what appear to be completely counter intuitive arguments on how to produce a crude sort of justice through balancing conflicting interests.
I think M's ouster, banishment and exile, under tyranny managed to illuminate more sharply how a just society might be built. The construction does not start with a moral code in advance of existing conditions. It starts with the well understood, lowest common denominator, each against all. How do you get to some form of just and well ordered society, if that is where you begin?
The more often I go back to M, the more I become convinced that his writing has a kind of symmetry. Instead of reading it as if you were the Prince, you read it as the common, powerless slob you are. This effects an inversion, turning the pyramid up side down so that instead of advocating for a Prince at the top, you can read it as advocating for the people at the bottom. Like any interpretative game, you never know if it is an accurate view of the work, but in this case it seems to work.
Take as an example the admonition the it is a civic virtue to show a certain cruelty, including the carrying out of executions.
After Seattle I thought about this in relation to the cops and local government. Seattle government was frightened. I suspect the Feds got frightened too. It occurred to me, that it is good that the state fear the people and that the people, on occasion perform acts of cruelty and violence toward government. It is necessary, to remind the government, that its work and duty is to servicing the needs of the people, and not merely those few who command wealth. Government officials understand fear because they are well practiced in its application. Because of this, it only takes a little of the same turned on them, as individuals, to get their attention. Sometimes, voting them out is enough. Sometimes it takes a little more: an insurrection, a riot, a violent and prolonged confrontation is required, the threat of civil anarchy.
This idea seems to be completely contra to a democratic spirit for the production of a civil society. But it is actually the very core of maintaining an open and democratic society. It is therefore a civic virtue that government be made to fear the people.
Here is a passage from The Prince (Cruelty and Clemency, Everyman, Knopf NY, p76). Turn this around to apply to government, rather than the people:
"...this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetus, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails."
Whatever can be said for the benefit to the people, for instilling fear and intimidation in government, can be multiplied many times over to apply to the infrastructure of capital and its managerial castes, i.e. the workplace.
I think that Yoshie was correct in her quote to the effect that calls for product boycotts must come from below. This is because such a call expresses the material interest of those people directly involved. The oldest example I can think of comes from CORE who was picketing a restaurant chain in LA, 1962--my first picket line--just before us white kids got purged. The picket was on behalf of the mostly black dishwashers, bus boys, and waitresses who called for the pickets because they couldn't picket without loosing their jobs.
On a much grander scale, there was the ANC call for a divestment in South Africa. So, sometimes, it is wise, no matter how outraged I might be about some issue, to wait for those whose interest is materially involved to come up with the answer of how to think about an issue and what to do. The effect will enhance their power. Where as if I just decide x, y, or z is a moral outrage, yet is not of material interest to me, then I can harm the potential power of those who are materially effected by the issue if I advocate on their behalf.
I realize this sounds completely illogical, but I am talking about existing conditions, and not just a theoretical position. If this is taken as a logical argument, it can be easily taken apart since it is ripe with contradictions.
Chuck Grimes