Ada Palmer – Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time

Dwarkesh Podcast · ~128 min · Listen

• Historian Ada Palmer argues Machiavelli was not the cynical amoralist of popular reputation but a patriotic scholar; she reframes The Prince as an earnest job application to Florence’s rulers rather than a manual for tyranny.
• His real innovation was consequentialist analysis of which specific means stabilize power (not that ruthlessness is simply “okay”) — drawn from firsthand diplomatic observation of Cesare Borgia, whom Machiavelli found both horrifying and fascinating.
• Palmer reframes Renaissance patronage networks as the functional foundation of pre-modern justice, not corruption — outside conquerors imposing neutral justice were popular precisely because factionalized justice had been the norm.
• Discussion also covers Florence’s diplomatic use of art/culture as a substitute for military spending, and how Renaissance ideas of moral redemption (vs. later Puritan purity) shaped how contemporaries read Machiavelli.
• Notable takeaway: “Machiavellian” as a pejorative inverts the historical reality — Machiavelli turned down lucrative foreign offers and chose loyalty to Florence over personal gain.