From fight to debate

Abstract

In A History of Florence, Machiavelli recounts revolts, especially of the Ciompi of 1378, which display the repeated surfacings of the desire for freedom navigating ceaselessly between the desire to abolish freedom through the recourse to absolute power and moments when virtue triumphs over fortuna and achieves an order that, while fragile, makes the antagonisms fit in such a way that instead of fights they become debates. For Machiavelli, the speeches made in these situations serve to both analyze the circumstances within which the struggles take on meaning and to display the desire for freedom carving out its path using the energy deployed via the negativity of the desire not to be dominated.

Plebeian Politics

“…According to this interpretation, Machiavelli supported the workers' struggle for political representation and for equality before the law but opposed the demands for redistribution and for participatory democracy in matters of manufacturing and production. 42 Commentators have focused on the speech's ostensibly corrupt account of justice, 43 on the resentment and fear and the Political Theory 40 (6) lack of a coherent political perspective, 44 and on the allegedly un-Machiavellian appeal to socioeconomic equality 45 as reasons for why the speech is, in Hanna Pitkin's words, "not an articulation of Machiavelli's views." 46 This strand of interpretation sees the radicalism of the speech as a symptom of a failed political system.…”