A private citizen rarely becomes prince through his own strength alone. Most of the time, someone else’s help is behind it.
Machiavelli splits that help into two branches: help from the nobles, and help from the people. This chapter asks which one builds the seat that lasts longer.
The Prince the Nobles Make
The nobles want to oppress the people. But sometimes their own strength is not enough for that alone.
At such times, they set up one of their own as prince. It is a calculation: borrow his name to oppress the people more easily. From that moment, the man made prince owes a debt to the nobles who raised him.
The Prince the People Make
The people do the same thing, for the opposite reason.
Unable to bear the nobles’ oppression any longer, the people set up one man to protect them. What they want is modest. Only that the oppression stop. What the people want is not to rule, but not to be crushed.
Which Seat Is Safer
Machiavelli states flatly that the seat built with the people’s help is far safer. He gives three reasons.
Beside a prince raised by the nobles, many still remain who consider themselves his equal. Giving orders is not easy. A prince raised by the people, by contrast, stands alone at the top, with almost no one who considers himself his equal.
The people’s demands are just, and so easy to satisfy honestly, while the nobles’ demands mean oppressing someone else, which leaves no honest way to satisfy them. And finally, if the people turn away, they merely withdraw their support, but if the nobles turn away, they move directly to bring him down.
The Example of Nabis
Nabis of Sparta showed this principle in the flesh.
Even when all of Greece and a Roman army laid siege to him, he held his state. It was because the people stood firmly behind him.
…ad un Principe è necessario avere il popolo amico, altrimenti non ha nelle avversità rimedio. (Chapter 9)
Today, Trust or Use
Machiavelli states plainly that a prince should lean on the people. But whether that really means trusting them is worth asking again.
The reason he gives is that the people’s demands are modest and easy to handle. It can also be read as a calculation: lean on them not because you trust them, but because dealing with them is less dangerous.
So it is worth asking of myself too. When I lean on someone, do I lean because I trust them, or because it is safer for me to do so?