Machiavelli's “new prince” and the Primordial Moment of Acquisition

Abstract

Commentators have frequently noted the discrepancy in il Principe between the figure of the new prince and the impossibility of exemplifying him. Against interpretations that claim Machiavelli's text either traps a prince in a web of self-destructive advice or destabilizes the very political knowledge it provides, the author argues that it uses the figure of the new prince to locate us in the primordial moment of acquisition of political power, a moment that is never overcome but is constantly replayed in maintaining states and beneath established institutions. Thus given the impossibility for a new prince to ever get beyond “the primordial moment of acquisition,” there can be no overall theoretical resolution to this tension, and thus no closure to this text. Therefore the text addresses a reader—actor who has to assemble the maxims and examples in light of the necessities governing primordial acquisition as they play out in his/her historical location.