Machiavelli II

The most interesting observation of Machiavelli's, and possibly the most relevant to today, was his observation on page 10 that in order to rule a people it is most effective to not change their culture but to craft your rhetoric to be in line with their local realities.

As we discussed in class, this is similar to the use of Christianity by various United States presidents to sell their own policies. Although there are many examples of this strategy working in today's world, I question weather contemporary powerful countries could still dominate less powerful countries with such adjustment of rhetoric.

It seems that most former colonies today have a strong post-colonial identity that resists outside domination even if it comes in indigenous cloths.

I am reminded of Sarte

"Here, the mother country is satisfied to keep some feudal rulers in her pay; there, dividing and ruling she has created a native bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end...Fanon hides nothing: in order to fight against us the former colony must fight against itself: or, rather, the two struggles form part of a whole. In the heat of battle, all internal barriers break down; the puppet bourgeoisie of businessmen and shopkeepers, the urban proletariat"

We live in a post-Fanonian world, much of the formally colonial world has gone through both anti-colonial struggles and have tried, through land reform or other means, to limit the puppet bourgeoisie. Fanon's project has been completed to the point that even the most obvious cases of remaining remnants of the puppet bourgeoisie, now the national elites, must have "liberation credentials" and play up their anti-imperial rhetoric. For this reason, I question whether Machiavelli's observation, that one can successfully set up a colony by not interfering with culture and ruling through puppet bourgeoisie, hold true today.