Inequality and corruption in machiavelli’s republicanism

Abstract

This article focuses on two interrelated goals: 1) to contribute to the interpretation of Machiavelli’s statements on the role of inequality in the corruption of republics; 2) to show that the results of this interpretive effort present potentially useful lessons for redirecting and advancing the research program of contemporary republicanism. We start from the hypothesis that the main exponents of neorepu-blicanism, in their readings of Machiavelli, tend to underestimate the importance of the socioeconomic dimension of equality that underlies the good republican order. The consequence of the elision of the material dimension of equality is a limited conceptualization of the type of inequality that, according to the Florentine thinker, fosters the corruption of republics. The argument is developed through reconstruction and analysis of Machiavelli’s view on the role of material inequality in the corruption of the Roman republic, exposed in the Discorsi, and regarding his hometown, recorded in History of Florence.