Egoism and the Freedom Movement: On the Anthropology of the Bourgeois Era

Abstract

Abstract The contradiction in the conception of human nature that has outstanding significance in the political literature of the bourgeois era came to light in two brilliant works at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Although Machiavelli's instructions for statesmen are not based on as pessimistic an anthropology as implied by the familiar statement in Chapter 18 of The Prince that all men “are bad and would not observe their faith,” subsequent centuries understood him essentially in that manner. In fact, Machiavelli found so many followers in this direction that Treitschke could state that “all truly great political thinkers reveal a trace of cynical contempt for man, and even if it is not too strong it always has a strong basis.”