Liberality for Losers¶
Machiavelli on Obamacare:
… any one wishing to maintain among men the name of liberal is
obliged to avoid no attribute of magnificence; so that a prince
thus inclined will consume in such acts all his property, and
will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the name of
liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do
everything he can to get money. This will soon make him odious
to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by
any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and
rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and
imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this
himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into
the reproach of being miserly.
[… ] Either you are a prince in fact, or in a way to become one.
In the first case this liberality is dangerous, in the second it
is very necessary to be considered liberal … […] And there is
nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you
exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either
poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and
hated. And a prince should guard himself, above all things,
against being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to
both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness
which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled
through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for
rapacity which begets reproach with hatred.
ADDED: Some racist liberality math from Charlie Martin.