James Harrington's ‘Machiavellian’ anti-Machiavellism
2011; Routledge; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2011.01.003
ISSN1873-541X
Autores Tópico(s)Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
ResumoAbstract In the last thirty years historians of republicanism have offered us the image of Harrington as the true hero of Machiavellism. This paper suggests instead that Harrington adopted Machiavelli's method in political science, but shared only few of his master's values, often referring to those cherished in anti-Machiavellian circles, as in the case of the agrarian laws. Indebted to the anti-Machiavellian Petrus Cunaeus's analysis of the Jewish Jubilee laws, Harrington transformed Cunaeus's specific observations into a general law of his own political science. This paper emphasizes the originality and modernity of such science, based on the inextricable interconnectedness between politics and economics. Further, it argues that this science entails a new, post-Machiavellian theory of liberty and property. Keywords: HarringtonBiblical polityTheocracyAgrarian lawsConcordSecurity of propertyLiberty Notes 1 The reference is of course to J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975) and to Q. Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998), 23–6, 46–7, passim. Visions of Politics, Vol. II, chapters 6 and 13 (Cambridge, 2002). 2 Among the vast debate raised by these works, I will just mention two critical voices, such as V. Sullivan, Machiavelli, Hobbes & the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England (Cambridge, 2004) and P.A. Rahe, Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy (Cambridge, 2006). 3 J. Scott, ‘The rapture of motion: James Harrington's republicanism’, in: Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain, ed. N. Phillipson, Q. Skinner (Cambridge, 1993), 139–63; cf. also J. Scott, England's Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge, 2000), 326–33. 4 There is an important, still valuable Italian tradition in this field, which flourished in the Sixties: cf. C. Vivanti, Lotta politica e pace religiosa in Francia fra Cinque e Seicento (Turin, 1963); R. De Mattei, Dal premachiavellismo all’antimachiavellismo (Florence, 1969); Machiavellismo e Antimachiavellici nel Cinquecento, Atti del Convegno di Perugia 1969, Il Pensiero politico, 2 (1969) also separately (Florence, 1970); S. Mastellone, Venalità e machiavellismo in Francia 1572-1610 (Florence, 1972). 5 I. Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ [1958], in Liberty, ed. H. Hardy (Oxford, 2002), 1–54. 6 L. Campos Boralevi, ‘Classical Foundational Myths of European republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth’, in: Republicanism: A shared European Heritage, ed. M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002), I, 247–61. 7 Besides highly important contributions to this debate contained in broader works, many specific treatises on this subject were published during the ‘Golden Age’, such as Bonaventure Bertram's De Politia Judaica, tam civili quam ecclesiastica (Geneva, 1574), Carlo Sigonio's De Republica Hebraeorum (Bologna, 1582), Franciscus Junius's De politiae Mosis observatione (Leiden, 1593), Petrus Cunaeus's De Republica Hebraeorum (Leiden, 1617) and Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-politicus (1670). For a more detailed list, see E. Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 16–22. 8 After C. Ligota's pioneering article, ‘L’histoire à fondement théologique: la République des Hébreux’, in: L’Écriture Sainte au temps de Spinoza et dans le système spinoziste, Travaux et documents du Groupe de recherche spinoziste 4 (1992), 149–67 and Petrus Cunaeus, De Republica Hebraeorum Of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews, Book I of Cunaeus's work, ed. and trans. C. Barksdale [London, 1653]), ed. L. Campos Boralevi (Firenze, 1996), in 1998 D. Quaglioni organized a seminal conference on ‘La Respublica Hebraeorum nella letteratura politica europea nell’età moderna’ at the University of Trent, whose proceedings were published in Politeia biblica, ed. L. Campos Boralevi and D. Quaglioni, special issue of Il pensiero politico 3 (2002), appeared also as a separate book (Florence, 2003). In June 2002 C. Ligota and L. Campos Boralevi organized an International Colloquium on ‘Moses the Legislator: the Impact of the Institutions of Ancient Israel on Medieval and Early Modern Political Thought’ at the Warburg Institute, UC London. 8 For more recent studies see Th. Dunkelgrün, “‘Neerlands Israel:" Political Theology, Christian Hebraism, Biblical Antiquarianism and Historical Myth’, in: Myth in History, History in Myth, ed. L. Cruz, W. Frijhoff (Leiden, 2009); E. Nelson, The Hebrew Republic and, from a different perspective, Mark Somos, Secularisation and the Leiden Circle (Leiden, forthcoming). 9 Stefanus Junius Brutus, Vindiciae contra tyrannos, sive, de Principis in Populum, Populique in Principem, legitima potestate (1579), ed. G. Garnett (Cambridge, 1994); J. Althusius, Politica, methodice digesta atque exemplis sacris et profanis illustrata (1614) ed. C.J. Friedrich (Cambridge, Mass., 1932); J. Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), in: The Political Works of J. Harrington, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1977). 10 S. Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York, 1987). 11 V. Conti, Consociatio Civitatum. Le repubbliche elzeviriane 1625-1649 (Florence, 1997). 12 B. Arias Montanus, David, hoc est, virtutis exercitatissimae probatum Deo spectaculum, ex David pastoris, militis, regis, exulis ac Prophetae exemplis (Antwerp, 1575). 13 To mention only one example, the Biblia Magna (Lyons, 1525), had provided its readers with the Concordantiae to Josephus's Antiquitates Judaicae. See H. Schreckenberger, Bibliographie zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden, 1968); H. Schreckenberger, Rezeptiongeschichtliche und Textkritische Untersuchungen zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden, 1977). 14 Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, Book II, 17: It was published in 1548 in the Frobenian Latin edition of Josephus's works, edited by Gelenius: Flavii Iosephi de Antiquitate Iudaeorum contra Apionem Alexandrinum, ad Epaphroditum, Opera Sigismundi Gelenij restitutus, in Flavii Iosephi Antiquatum Iudaicarum […] (Basel, 1548). 14 ‘Non enim parte virtutis dei culturam dixit, sed huius partes alias esse perspexit atque constituit: hoc est fortitudinem, iustitiam & mutuam in omnibus civium concordiam. Cunctae namque actiones et studia, universique sermones ad divinam referuntur per omnia pietatem. Non enim hoc inexaminatum aut indefinitum ulterius dereliquit.’ 14 In Josephus's line cf. B. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus (1670), V, 11, ed. J. Israel (Cambridge, 2007), 74: ‘This is why Moses, with his virtue and by divine command, introduced religion into the commonwealth, so that the people would do its duty more from devotion than from fear’. 15 A. Momigliano, ‘Un’apologia del giudaismo: il Contro Apione di Flavio Giuseppe’ (1931), in: Terzo Contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Roma, 1966); now in: Id, Essays in Ancient and Modern Judaism, ed. S. Berti (Chicago, 1994). 16 Petrus Cunaeus, De Republica Hebraeorum (Leiden, 1617), 28. 17 Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum (10, 6). 18 It is interesting to note that the colophon with the eagle surmounted by Sallust's motto on Concordia became Elzevier's colophon not only for Cunaeus's work, but for many other books published by Leiden Elzevier. 19 D. van Miert, Humanism in an Age of Science: The Amsterdam Athenaeum in the Golden Age, 1632-1704 (Leiden, 2009), 281–5. 20 P. Cunaeus, Commonwealth, 51–3. 21 P. Cunaeus, De Republica Hebraeorum, 51: ‘Had every one made that his own, upon which he first let his foot, quarrels and commotions among the people must needs have followed: for so it usually comes to pass; whilst every one seeks to get and appropriate to himself what was common, Peace is lost.’ 22 M. Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York, 1985). 23 Cunaeus, Commonwealth, 51. 24 The Oceana of James Harrington, and Other Works, ed. J. Toland (London, 1700). 25 J. Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana [1656] in The Political Works of J. Harrington, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1977), 164 [my italics]. 26 J. Harrington, Oceana, 180–1. 27 J. Harrington, Oceana, 107. 28 J. Harrington, Oceana, 235–6. 29 J. Harrington, Oceana, 236. 30 J. Scott, ‘Harrington's ‘Rapture of Motion’, 139–63; Sullivan, Machiavelli, 144–73; most recently E. Nelson, The Hebrew republic, 84–5, has pointed out the use of Plutarch in Harrington's interpretation. 31 M. Geuna, ‘La tradizione repubblicana e i suoi interpreti: famiglie teoriche e discontinuità concettuali,’ Filosofia politica, 12 (1998), 101–34. 32 Harrington, Oceana, 166. 33 A. Loria, La teoria economica della costituzione politica (Torino, 1886), 108; Loria quotes Toland's edition of Harrington's works, and his introduction, wherein Toland compares Harrington's achievement to the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind: ‘That Empire follows the Balance of Property, whether lodg’d in one, in few, or in many hands, he was the first that ever made out; and is a noble Discovery, wherof the Honor solely belongs to him, as much as the Circulation of Blood, of Printing, of Guns, of the Compass, or of Optic Glasses, to their several Authors.’ See J. Toland, The Life of James Harrington in: The Oceana of James Harrington, XVIII. Cf. J. Harrington, The Art of Law-giving, III, 1(1659): ‘Seeing it hath been sufficiently proved, that Empire followeth the nature of propriety, that the kind of Empire or Government dependeth upon the Distribution (except in small Countries) of Land; and that where the Balance hath not been fixed, the kind of nature of the Government hath been floating: it is good Reason that in the proposition of a Commonwealth, we begin with fixation of the Balance in propriety’, 664. Loria also quotes Harrington's The Prerogative of Popular Government, p. 290–1: ‘An agrarian is a law fixing the Balance of Government in such a manner that it cannot alter’. 34 A. Loria, La teoria economica, 108. Loria took up the same argument in Le basi economiche della costituzione sociale (Torino, 1899), which was translated into French by A. Bouchard (Paris, 1893), and in English by S. Sonnenschein as The Economic Foundations of Society (London 1899), 332–3. It was reviewed by J. Bonar in The Economic Journal (1894) and by L.M. Keasbey in the Journal of Political Economy (1899). 34 On Loria's work cf. B. Croce, Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica (Bari, 1978); E. Bernstein, Cromwell and Communism. Socialism and Democracy in the Great English Revolution (London, 1963); G.M. Bravo, Marx ed Engels in Italia. La fortuna gli scritti le relazioni le polemiche (Rome, 1992); R. Faucci, ‘Revisione del marxismo e teoria economica della proprietà in Italia, 1888-1900: Achille Loria (e gli altri)’, Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno (1976–77), 587–680 and, more recently, P.D. Groenewegen, ‘Marx and Engels contra Achille Loria’, in: Classics and Moderns in Economics: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Economic Thought, ed. P.D. Groenewegen (London, 2002). 35 Th. Hobbes, Leviathan, II, 21, ed. C.B. Macpherson (London, 1981), 266: ‘The Libertie, whereof there is so frequent, and honourable mention, in the Histories, and Philosophy of the Antient Greeks, and Romans, and in the writings, and discourse of those that from them have received all their learning in the Politiques, is not the Libertie of Particular men; but the Libertie of the Common-wealth: which is the same with that, which every man then should have, if there were no Civil Laws, nor Common-wealth at all’. 36 Hobbes, Leviathan, II, 21, 266. Hobbes goes on in his provocative way, stating that ‘it is an easy thing, for men to be deceived by the specious name of Libertie […] And when the same errour is confirmed by the authority of men in reputation for their writings in the subject, it is no wonder if it produce sedition, and change of Government. In these westerne parts of the world, we are made to receive our opinions […] from Aristotle, Cicero’. The conclusion is that ‘[…] by reading of these Greek, and Latine Authors, men from their childhood have gotten a habit (under a false shew of Liberty), of favouring tumults, and of licentious controlling the actions of their Soveraigns; […] as I think I may truly say, there was never any thing so deerly bought, as these Western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latine tongues.’ (Hobbes, Leviathan, II, 21, 267–8). 37 J. Harrington, Oceana, 170–1 [my italics]. 38 J. Harrington, The Art of Lawgiving, in: The Political Works, 634: ‘Inheritances, being thus introduced by the lot, were immovably entailed upon the proprietors and their heirs forever, by the institution of the jubilee, or the return of lands, however sold or engaged, once in fifty years, unto the ancient proprietor or his lawful heir.’ 39 Differing from the ‘socialistic’ interpretation of E. Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 57–87, who stresses more the redistribution aspect. 40 B. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, XVII, 25, 224 [my italics]. 41 J. Harrington, Oceana, 163, 230; cf. E. Capozzi, Costituzione, elezione, aristocrazia; la repubblica ‘naturale’ di James Harrington (Naples, 1996), 82–3. 42 J. Harrington, Oceana, 171: ‘by the law […] framed by every private man unto no other end […] than to protect the liberty of every private man, which by that means comes to be the liberty of the commonwealth’. Cf. E. Capozzi, Costituzione, 83–7.
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