Satisfied in poverty? On Machiavelli’s argument of social division

Abstract

The article aims to reconstruct the famous thesis about the social division between powerful and the people, as it is presented in Machiavelli’s major works, in order to show some important normative implications, it has for the contemporary political theory. Particularly, it brings about the conceptual position of “people” in Maquiavelli’s argument understood as a necessarily positional function under centralized political authorities. Finally, the article tries to present, in very broad strokes, two alternative appropriations of the argument. The notion of “people” plays two distinctive roles in each of these traditions, respectively, as an important tool against social oppression, and as the only possible source for political legitimacy.