Audio · 2026-06-16 · 6 moments

Ada Palmer – Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time

"He begged to work for the regime that tortured him." ✦ AI generated

timeline · colored by role

Context

Italy's collapse of long-standing city-state governments, combined with the unpredictable, non-hereditary turnover of the papacy, created a 'perfect storm' of instability that only a single power with hereditary staying power near Rome could stabilize.

Ada Palmer explains that Machiavelli wrote The Prince against a backdrop of two compounding instabilities: nearly every Italian city-state had recently had its government overthrown, and the papacy's unpredictable, non-hereditary succession meant an unfamiliar, often hostile ruler every decade or so.

transcript

Ada Palmer: When Machiavelli was born, there were six or seven city-states in Italy that had had their governments uprooted recently. By the time he’s writing The Prince, it’s dozens, in fact, the majority of these places. So it’s volatile. Almost no government has staying power.

Mechanism◆

Machiavelli judges historical actors like Cesare Borgia not simply by whether they succeeded, but by whether their choices were the most probable route to success before chance (fortune) intervened — so the Borgias' fall does not prove their methods were wrong.

Ada Palmer explains Machiavelli's distinctive method: he judges actions not merely by ultimate outcome but by what the most probable outcome would have been absent bad luck — meaning Cesare Borgia's actions were correct even though fortune later doomed him.

transcript

Ada Palmer: No, they did not fall because of their choices. They fell because half of what happens in the world is never in our control. You can do everything right, and it’s out of your control. But we have to evaluate what would have happened, and therefore we should imitate them, because everything they did was right.

Claim

Machiavelli was the first thinker in the European tradition to argue that a state could remain stable with more than one political party competing against each other, rather than requiring one party to annihilate the other.

Ada Palmer highlights an overlooked Machiavellian innovation: contrary to the prevailing assumption that factions must fight until one is exterminated, Machiavelli (citing Siena) argued competing parties could coexist and stabilize a state by venting tension through ongoing rivalry.

transcript

Ada Palmer: Machiavelli is the first person that we have ever in the European tradition to suggest that it could be viable for there to be more than one political party in a state at the same time, and that they would compete against each other and vent the society’s tension through competition and vie to try to dominate an election and then the next one.

Example

Patronage, entangled with nepotism, was the fundamental glue of Renaissance society — so much so that ordinary Romans rioted demanding the pope appoint his own illegitimate son, rather than a more competent outsider, as commander of the papal armies, because only a son's loyalty could be trusted.

Ada Palmer describes how deeply patronage and nepotism structured Renaissance life, illustrated by riots in Rome when Pope Paul III passed over his own illegitimate son in favor of a competent general — the public demanded nepotism because only kinship loyalty guaranteed an army wouldn't turn on its ruler.

transcript

Ada Palmer: Your Holiness, the people demand more nepotism. You must appoint your illegitimate son to command your armies, because your illegitimate son will never betray you, and we will know we can trust the papal armies not to turn on Rome if the Pope’s son is the commander.

Mechanism

When Cesare Borgia conquered a city and massacred its ruling family, he became beloved by ordinary people because, as a neutral outsider with no local factional ties, he administered fair justice for the first time in generations — even though his rule was built on terror.

Ada Palmer explains the paradox of Cesare Borgia's popularity: by wiping out entrenched ruling families and having no local factional allegiance, his regime delivered neutral justice that ordinary people—long subject to justice skewed by whichever faction held power—experienced as fairness for the first time.

transcript

Ada Palmer: As a result, to everyone’s surprise, he moves into a city, he massacres the rulers, he implements an authoritarian regime, and he’s incredibly popular and beloved by the people. Everyone says, “Why are they liking this man? He is a cruel, murdering tyrant.” The answer is, for the first time in generations, they have something close to fair justice.

explains mechanism · 1

Claim◆

The real Machiavelli was not writing a manual for self-serving advancement, but a manual for how a ruler keeps power in order to protect a state and its people — the popular 'Machiavellian' villain is a separate cultural character almost opposite to the actual patriotic author.

Ada Palmer argues that 'Machiavellian'—the self-serving, murderous schemer—is a fictional character that split off from the real Niccolò Machiavelli, a patriot who wrote The Prince as a guide to keeping power in order to protect one's people, not a how-to for personal advancement.

transcript

Ada Palmer: The real Machiavelli is not about advancing yourself. It’s not a manual for getting ahead. It shouldn’t be shelved next to How to Win Friends and Influence People, because it’s a manual not of how to gain power, but of how to keep power. If you have a government and want it to be stable and protect the people’s lives, do this.

Highlight slides

Machiavelli's Real Standard: Probability, Not Outcome✦ from: Machiavelli judges historical actors like Cesare Borgia not simply by whether they succeeded, but by whether their choices were the most probable route to success before chance (fortune) intervened — so the Borgias' fall does not prove their methods were wrong.Ada Palmer: Why We Should Still Imitate Borgia✦ from: Machiavelli judges historical actors like Cesare Borgia not simply by whether they succeeded, but by whether their choices were the most probable route to success before chance (fortune) intervened — so the Borgias' fall does not prove their methods were wrong.The Myth vs. The Man✦ from: The real Machiavelli was not writing a manual for self-serving advancement, but a manual for how a ruler keeps power in order to protect a state and its people — the popular 'Machiavellian' villain is a separate cultural character almost opposite to the actual patriotic author.A Guide to Keeping Power, Not Gaining It✦ from: The real Machiavelli was not writing a manual for self-serving advancement, but a manual for how a ruler keeps power in order to protect a state and its people — the popular 'Machiavellian' villain is a separate cultural character almost opposite to the actual patriotic author.

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