In challenging her students to craft a Martian constitution that eschews traditional electoral politics, Professor Hélène Landemore is agitating for the best of all possible political worlds (“Designing democracy on Mars can improve how it works on Earth”, Opinion, May 28). And her advocacy of a more participatory form of government is not without merit. Indeed, as Niccolò Machiavelli noted: “Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.”
But the father of political science cautioned those rare and brave souls seeking to reform a broken polity that “it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things”.
If humanity ever populates the red planet, the rule of law, political stability and the common good can be instituted by going back to the future.
In The Prince, Machiavelli’s empirical blueprint for safeguarding a republic — and reunifying Italy — the notion of virtù — a steely and scrupulous statecraft — takes centre stage.
However, Machiavelli also underscored that “it is essential that in entering a new province you should have the good will of its inhabitants”. -RAI
[This letter appeared in the Financial Times May 31, 2021]
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