In 1967, Antony Jay published Management and Machiavelli: An Inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life. He argued that the pursuit of power in a modern corporation was just like the Renaissance politics described by Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince, and that Machiavelli's principles for gaining and holding political power were also the best principles for successfully advancing one's position in a corporation. His book is considered a classic of management science that was followed by dozens of other books on "Machiavellian management."
Jay was also interested in how human behavior in organizations was like a lot of animal behavior. In a 2005 interview, he said: "During my own experiences, I saw how an awful lot of animal behavior, particularly primate behavior, comes up in the modern corporation." He also wrote the popular BBC television series "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" that were comic depictions of British civil servants and government ministers fighting for dominance.
In 1970, Richard Christie and Florence Geis published Studies in Machiavellianism, in which they developed a procedure for identifying the "Machiavellian personality" of people who unscrupulously pursue their selfish interests by manipulating and deceiving others. They developed a "Mach Scale" based on whether people agree with a series of statements that are identified with Machiavelli. In its most extreme form, the purest Machiavellian personality might be a psychopath, who manipulates and exploits other human beings unrestrained by any moral emotions of shame, guilt, or love. The "Mach Scale" has been used extensively by social psychologists.
In 1982, Frans de Waal published Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes. The book was based on de Waal's study of the chimpanzees in the Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, the Netherlands. At that time, this was the largest group of chimpanzees in a zoo (23 individuals). During the warmer half of the year, they were free to move over a two-acre outdoor island area surrounded by a moat, which allowed for careful observations of their social behavior by de Waal and his students.
De Waal says that he couldn't understand what these chimpanzees were doing until he read Machiavelli: "The biological literature proved to be of no help understanding the social maneuvering that I observed, so I turned to Niccolo Machiavelli. During quiet moments of observation, I read from a book that had been published more than four centuries earlier. The Prince put me in the right frame of mind to interpret what I was seeing on the chimpanzees' forested island, though I'm pretty sure the Florentine philosopher never envisioned this particular application" (de Waal 2016, 168). He found that "whole passages of Machiavelli seem to be directly applicable to chimpanzee behavior" in explaining "the struggle for power and the resultant opportunism" (1982, 19).
In 1988, Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten published their edited book Machiavellian Intelligence: The Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans, which explored the "Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis"--the idea that the evolutionary growth in the size of primate and human brains could be explained as an adaptation for the cognitive challenges of navigating through the social complexity of primate communities in which individuals must figure out how best to both compete and cooperate with other members of their species. This has been a popular topic of research for primatologists and for cognitive scientists generally, although the term "Machiavellian intelligence" is sometimes replaced by "social intelligence" or "social brain" by people like Robin Dunbar.
Michael Jackson and Damian Grace--social science scholars at the University of Sydney (Australia)--have complained that all of these applications of "Machiavellian" thinking to management, social psychology, and primatology show a crude distortion of what Machiavelli actually taught, and that those historians and political theorists who have studied Machiavelli should feel obligated to correct these false views of Machiavelli and his teaching (Jackson and Grace 2012, 2015).
They say that when they examined many of the textbooks on the history of political thought, "we found in them not one single reference to Machiavelli's afterlife in management, social psychology, or primatology" (2015, 68). They did not look at my textbook on the history of political philosophy--Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Pinker. If they had, they would have seen that my chapter on Machiavelli has passages on de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics, Byrne and Whiten's Machiavellian Intelligence, and Christie and Geis's Studies in Machiavellianism (see Arnhart 2015, 145-46, 151). I also refer to Edward O. Wilson and Jane Goodall as biologists who study the power-seeking personality among chimpanzees and other animals. I bring all of this up as I ask the question, Was Machiavelli a Machiavellian? In other words, does Machiavelli's teaching correspond to the popular use of the term "Machiavellian" as denoting the ruthless pursuit of power over others through immoral force and fraud? Jackson and Grace answer no to this question.
I am particularly interested in raising this question as it bears on primatology. Is chimpanzee politics Machiavellian? If it is, does this Machiavellian chimpanzee politics conform to what Machiavelli himself taught? Or does this chimpanzee Machiavellianism depart from Machiavelli's teaching about politics? Although Jackson and Grace are a little obscure on these points, they seem to say that while chimpanzee politics might be "Machiavellian" in the popular sense of that term, this contradicts what Machiavelli himself taught.
I will survey some of what de Waal says about chimpanzee politics. Then I will consider the arguments of Jackson and Grace for denying that chimpanzee politics conforms to what Machiavelli teaches. Finally, I will suggest some ways in which the political life of chimpanzees really does manifest some of what Machiavelli teaches about politics.
When de Waal arrived at the Arnhem zoo in 1975 to study the chimpanzees, Yeroen was the alpha male. Yeroen was dominant over three other adult males--Luit, Nikkie, and Dandy. The social hierarchy is indicated by a special form of greeting. Chimpanzees show a submissive greeting that is a sequence of short panting grunts by the subordinate individual as he looks up at the superior individual, which is usually accompanied by a series of deep bobbing bows by the subordinate. Sometimes the subordinate will stretch out a hand to the superior or kiss the superior's feet, neck, or chest. The superior reacts to this by rising up and making his hair stand on end, so that he looks very large in contrast to the groveling subordinate. The alpha male is the male who is "greeted" by the other males. Generally, the alpha male is also "greeted" by the females and the children in a group.
The male on the left is dominant. The male on the right is subordinate. Although they are actually the same size, the dominant male makes himself look bigger.
People often assume that among animals the dominance hierarchy must be determined by fighting in which the biggest and strongest animal wins and becomes the alpha. But de Waal insists that this is false. Among chimpanzees and other animals, physical strength is only one of many traits required for becoming the dominant alpha leader. To become the alpha, one needs supporters. So one must form coalitions with partners, and to win the support of the females and the children, one needs to act as a mediator in intervening in disputes to enforce peace and unity either through impartial intervention or by supporting the weaker party against the stronger. One must know how to reconcile after disputes. And one must know how to achieve mutual cooperation through reciprocity by returning favors and by punishing those who are not cooperative. So a chimpanzee community is not governed by "the law of the jungle" or the "rule of the stronger."
There is a female hierarchy as well as a male hierarchy. In fact, before de Waal arrived at the Arnhem Zoo, the alpha female--Mama--was the dominant chimp over the whole group beginning in 1972. Then, on November 5th of 1973, three adult males--Yeroen, Luit, and Nikkie--were added to the group. Mama refused to accept them. With her friend, Gorilla, she attacked the males--biting their feet and pulling their hair. Their fear of her was expressed in their screaming, diarrhea, and vomiting. After two weeks of this, the zoo managers decided to remove Mama and Gorilla from the group, because these females were inflicting too many injuries through their uncontrolled aggression. Males seem to be better at controlling their aggression. And since it is known that in the wild adult males are dominant, it was thought that they should have a chance to become dominant without the interference of Mama.
After three months, Yeroen was dominant over the group. Mama and Gorilla were brought back. Mama attacked the three adult males. But she had no support from the other females, not even Gorilla. Without the solidarity of the females, Mama could not alone intimidate the males. Within a few weeks, Yeroen was dominant again, and he remained dominant from the spring of 1974 to the spring of 1976.
In 1976, de Waal saw the first of two power take-overs, which he understood with the help of Machiavelli, and this is what became the central focus of his book Chimpanzee Politics. In the spring of 1976, Luit stopped "greeting" Yeroen, which initiated months of tense conflict between them as they fought over which would be dominant. Luit formed a coalition with Nikkie, so that Nikkie would help Luit against Yeroen. On June 21st, Yeroen bared his teeth for the first time, which is a sign of fear in chimps. On September 1, Yeroen "greeted" Luit for the first time. Luit began to take on the control role of the alpha male in mediating fights to restore peace in the group. On October 31, Yeroen "greeted" Nikkie for the first time. So, now, Luit was the alpha male, Nikkie was second in command, and Yeroen was ranked third.
But then, in the spring of 1977, Nikkie formed a coalition with Yeroen to challenge Luit, and by December of 1977, Luit was "greeting" Nikkie as his superior. Nikkie had become the alpha male, with Yeroen second in command. The chimpanzees' keeper at the zoo worried, however, that Nikkie was too young and immature to properly control his aggression. De Waal responded by arguing that Nikkie was so dependent on the support of Yeroen, the oldest male, that there was no need to fear "an absolute dictatorship by a snotty-nosed upstart" (1982, 136).
But now that winter had come, and the chimps were confined to their indoor housing, Nikkie's violence did become excessive. Whenever Luit and Yeroen were sitting together, Nikkie fought to separate them and to be close to Yeroen. Nikkie became so violent that de Waal and the keeper agreed that he needed to be removed from the group for the rest of the winter. Once Nikkie was gone, Luit resumed his dominant position. In the spring of 1978, the chimps were released to their outdoor island, Nikkie was reintroduced, and Nikkie soon reclaimed his dominance.
De Waal noticed something strange about Nikkie's alpha male dominance. When Yeroen was the alpha male, he was "greeted" by the other adult males, and he also received almost all of the "greetings" from the females and children. When Luit was the alpha male, he was "greeted" by the other adult males, and he also received over 50% of the "greetings" from the females and children. But when Nikkie was the alpha male, he was "greeted" by the other alpha males, but he received a lower proportion of the "greetings" from the females and children than did Yeroen. Moreover, Yeroen exercised the control role--mediating disputes and restoring peace--that would normally be exercised by the alpha male, and this increased the popular respect for Yeroen as opposed to Nikkie. Echoing Machiavelli's famous remark that "it is better to be feared than loved," de Waal observed that Nikkie was "feared rather than respected" (1982, 149). But de Waal suggests that this lack of popularity made Nikkie weak.
There was another strange feature of Nikkie's alpha male status. Generally, alpha male chimps have the highest number of sexual matings with the females, and they actively disrupt the attempted matings of other males. This makes sense in evolutionary terms, because we assume that the drive for male dominance evolved as an adaptive trait because alpha males have higher reproductive fitness. But during the period of Nikkie's dominance, Yeroen had the highest proportion of matings, and Nikkie was forced to tolerate this in order to keep Yeroen's support.
To explain this, de Waal quotes a passage from Chapter 9 of The Prince entitled "Of the Civil Principate." A civil principate, Machiavelli explains, is when "a private citizen neither by wickedness nor other intolerable violence, but with the favor of his fellow citizens, becomes prince of his fatherland."
"One ascends to this principate either with the favor of the people [populo] or with that of the great [grandi]. For in every city, these two different humors are to be found. Thus it is that the people desire not to be commanded or oppressed by the great, and the great desire to command and to oppress the people. . . ."
"The principate is established either by the people or by the great, according to whether one of the other of these parties has the occasion. For the great, when they see they are not able to resist the people, begin turning to the reputation of one of their own, making him prince, so they may, under his shadow, give vent to their appetite. The people also, when they see that they are not able to resist the great, turn to the reputation of one, and make him a prince, so that he may with authority be their defense. He who comes to the principate with the aid of the great maintains himself with more difficulty than the one who attains to it with the aid of the people--for he finds himself prince with many around him who opine themselves his equals, and because of this he cannot command or manage them in his own mode."De Waal quotes the last sentence above, and he explains:
"Nikkie's position was not an easy one. Compared to him Yeroen and Luit were almost all-powerful, thanks to the collaboration of the females. The important difference between Nikkie's leadership and the old order was that Nikkie stood on the shoulders of someone who was himself very ambitious. The ensuing problems are familiar enough in the human world. Machiavelli wrote about the relative powerlessness of this kind of leader. In in the following quotation from The Prince, we translate 'nobility' [the 'great'] by 'males of high rank' and 'common people' by 'females and children,' then we see that Nikkie's 'principality' is indeed very different from the 'principality' of his two predecessors" (1982, 153).De Waal observes:
"Sometimes it seemed that Nikkie was being used as a figurehead, and that Yeroen--experienced as he was and extremely cunning--had him in the palm of his hand. The broad basis for leadership rested not under Nikkie but under Yeroen. The older male had a coalition with the females to pressurize Nikkie and a coalition with Nikkie to keep Luit in check. Seen in these terms the situation appeared to represent a comeback for Yeroen. Luit had deprived him of the support and respect he had hitherto enjoyed, but by pushing a youngster forward, Yeroen seemed to have succeeded in reacquiring both" (1982, 152).But then, from 1978 to 1980, the proportion of the "greetings" directed from the females and the children towards Nikkie increased until he had the level of respect that normally goes to the alpha male.
In Chimpanzee Politics, de Waal ended the story here. But years later, he admitted that he had left out a brutal act in 1980 of what he called "political murder," because he didn't want to end his book on a "dark note" (de Waal 1986; 1998, 211). In the summer of 1980, Nikkie refused to tolerate Yeroen's copulations with estrus females, and consequently Yeroen withdrew his support of Nikkie. Without the coalition with Yeroen, Nikkie lost his dominance, and Luit became alpha male again for ten weeks.
But then Nikkie and Yeroen renewed their coalition and challenged Luit. One night, while the chimps were in their night cages, Nikkie and Yeroen jointly attacked Luit--bitting off fingers and toes and then ripping out Luit's testicles. Luit died from loss of blood.
The powerful jaws and teeth of adult males are deadly weapons. Their incisors are like knives that can easily kill their victims. But male chimps almost never use these weapons in lethal attacks. There seems to be a rule against lethal fighting. And yet the underlying threat of fighting to kill always creates tension in any severe conflict. On rare occasions, killing does occur. It's more likely to occur in war--in conflicts between chimpanzee groups rather than within a group. Jane Goodall has seen this in Gombe. De Waal could not see this because he was observing only one group.
De Waal's silence about the killing of Luit in the first edition of Chimpanzee Politics was not just to avoid ending the book on a "dark note," I suspect, but to avoid confirming the fears of those who had warned that establishing such a large community of chimps, including adult males, in a zoo without separating them in cages would lead to explosive and even lethal violence. Since it was known that feeding chimps together created violence in fighting over the food, the Arnhem chimps were fed every morning and evening in separate cages so as to eliminate fighting over food. But then being enclosed indoors every night during the warm months and throughout the day in the cold months created tension, because chimps in conflict could not separate. Mama had to be removed in the winter of 1973, and Nikkie was removed in the winter of 1977, because their aggression was leading to serious injuries. The killing of Luit in 1980 was during a night when Luit, Yeroen, and Nikkie were all caged together, and so Luit had no room to escape the attack.
The longest chapter in Machiavelli's The Prince--Chapter 19 on "Of Avoiding Contempt and Hatred"--is about how princes who become hated open themselves up to conspiracies leading to their assassination. The killing of Luit seems to show that political assassination is also part of the Machiavellian politics of chimpanzees.
So why exactly do Jackson and Grace object to identifying chimpanzee politics as Machiavellian? They suggest at least five arguments. First, they object that what is called "Machiavellian" is based on "the more flamboyant passages" in The Prince--such as "it is better to be feared than loved"--without seeing how less flamboyant passages in The Prince moderate what Machiavelli is saying. They write: "The Prince, like his other books, also offers moral judgments, recommendations of caution, emphasis on the importance of stability, advice on treating the populace with respect, and much else that surprises those whose stereotype of Machiavellianism is transposed to Niccolo Machiavelli" (Jackson and Grace 2012).
Second, they object that primatologists like de Waal have read only The Prince, and so they don't see Machiavelli's support for republicanism in The Discourses and other writings.
Third, they object that the popular view of Machiavellianism fails to see how Machiavelli was simply responding to his historical circumstances in Renaissance Italy in which political life was disrupted by domestic violence, warfare, brutality, and deceit. The apparent cynicism of what Machiavelli says is a response to those harsh conditions. They write: "The best analogy for the circumstances in which Machiavelli lived are to be found today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, or the remoter regions of Pakistan, where power does grow out of the barrel of a gun" (Jackson and Grace 2012).
Fourth, they argue that much of Machiavelli's writing is a factual description of what princes and politically ambitious people do without any endorsement of that behavior.
Fifth, they argue that Machiavelli is clear that the political class of people who strive for dominance over others is very small, and that most human beings do not have such a dominance drive, and they wish only to live their private lives in peace without being exploited by those who wish to dominate them. In a republic, Machiavelli indicates, the desire to be free is for most people a desire to be free to live a secure life; and it is only for a few people--perhaps no more than 40 or 50--that the desire to be free is a desire to be free so as to command others `(Discourses, I, ch. 16).
Oddly, however, Jackson and Grace don't reflect on the fact that much of what de Waal says about Machiavelli and the chimps agrees with some of their arguments. De Waal indicates that he does not like the term "Machiavellian intelligence" insofar as it assumes the crudely distorted popular meaning of "Machiavellian":
"The term Machiavellian implies a cynical, the-ends-justify-the-means exploitation of others. Social cognition covers much more than this. A mother resolving a weaning conflict by cleverly distracting her offspring, or an adult male waiting for the right moment to reconcile with his rival, both intelligently use their experience but are not exactly acting 'Machiavellian' in the usual sense. Sensitivity to others, conflict resolution, and reciprocal exchange all demand a great deal of intelligence but are left out if our terminology one-sidedly emphasizes one-upmanship" (1998, 218).Thus, de Waal agrees with Jackson and Grace in rejecting the popular sense of "Machiavellian." He also agrees that this Machiavellian idea of "a cynical, the-ends-justify-the-means exploitation of others" cannot explain chimpanzee social life, which requires "sensitivity to others, conflict resolution, and reciprocal exchange." In Chimpanzee Politics, De Waal sees in chimpanzee life the evolutionary roots of morality--a "sense of moral rightness and justice" (1982, 105, 111-12, 176, 200, 204-205, 207, 212-13).
In his writing published after Chimpanzee Politics, which Jackson and Grace ignore, de Waal argues that chimpanzees show the evolutionary foundations of morality--including reciprocity, fairness, empathy, and social cooperation. De Waal has summarized some of the evidence for this in a TED talk:
And while Jackson and Grace accuse the Machiavellian primatologists of ignoring Machiavelli's teaching about the importance of a republican politics that respects the needs of the populace, De Waal sees in chimpanzee politics a democratic or republican structure like that recommended by Machiavelli with a balance of three orders--the one, the few, and the many.
Machiavelli analyzed politics as competition for power and glory organized around three orders of human beings--the "prince," who is number one; the "great ones," who are high-ranking individuals with ambition to rule; and the "people," who are the great majority of individuals in a society with no ambition to rule, but who do not want to be oppressed by the "prince" or the "great ones," because they want to live their private lives in security and peace. A stable and peaceful regime would have to balance these three orders in a manner that would satisfy the ambitions and appetites of all three without anyone having the power to tyrannize over others (The Prince, ch. 9, 57-60; The Discourses, I.2, 10-14).
De Waal saw a similar social structure among the chimpanzees: the alpha male chimp is the "prince"; the high-ranking males are the "great ones"; and the females and children are the "people." The similarities between chimpanzee politics and human politics were so close that Newt Gingrich, when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress, recommended de Waal's book to all freshmen congressmen who might want to understand Washington politics.
Just as Machiavelli saw the balance of three orders in a republic as the fundamental mechanism for maintaining a stable and free political regime that would not be despotic, de Waal saw the same mechanism at work among chimps. Noticing how the alpha male often had to rely on the support of an ally to keep challengers down, de Waal explained this as a "balance of power: the superiority of one party over another depends on the support of a third, so that each party affects the position of the others." De Waal observed that the leader "cannot impose his leadership on the group single-handed. His position is granted him, in part, by the other chimpanzees. The leader, or alpha male, is just as much ensnared in the web as the rest" (1982, 23). So, among chimps, there is something like government by the consent of the governed.
De Waal sees here what some political scientists have called government by the "minimal winning coalition" (de Waal 1982, 187; Bueno de Mesquita and Smith 2011). No one individual can rule without supporters, and so there must always be a ruling coalition supporting the leader, who must satisfy his supporters. A dictatorship is rule by a small coalition. Democracy is rule by a large coalition. The leader must serve the interests of his coalition, and so the larger the coalition, the closer this approximates to serving the common interests of society.
Consequently, there was something like a "democratic structure" in this order of chimpanzee society:
"All parties search for social significance and continue to do so until a temporary balance is achieved. This balance determines the new hierarchical positions. Changing relationships reach a point where they become 'frozen' in more or less fixed ranks. When we see how this formalization takes place during reconciliations, we understand that the hierarchy is a cohesive factor, which puts limits on competition and conflict. Child care, playing, sex and cooperation depend on the resultant stability. But underneath the surface, the situation is constantly in a state of flux. The balance of power is tested daily, and if it proves too weak, it is challenged, and a new balance is established" (1982, 176, 212-13; 1998, 172, 208-209).Although every human society shows an order of dominance like that of a chimpanzee society, a well-balanced society can achieve egalitarian dominance rather than despotic dominance. De Waal has observed that rhesus monkeys manifest despotic dominance, because a dominant rhesus monkey instills unremitting fear in subordinates. But among chimpanzees, the dominant chimp often acts to protect subordinates, and if he becomes a bully, he can provoke an alliance of subordinates to throw him out of power (de Waal 1996, 125-32).
This seems to be what happens in egalitarian human communities. Among hunter-gatherers, leaders who become too proud are attacked with social ridicule, and in extreme cases, leaders can be deposed or even executed by their followers. With the establishment of centralized, bureaucratic states, it became possible for despots to concentrate their power. And yet the natural human desire to be free from despotic exploitation has provoked alliances among subordinates to check the power of dominants, which has promoted political systems for balancing power. In their style of political dominance, human beings are more like chimpanzees than rhesus monkeys (Boehm 1999, 2012; Rubin 2002; Turner and Maryanski 2008).
John Adams agreed with Machiavelli that every society shows three social orders rooted in human nature--the one, the few, and the many--and that a stable and free republic requires a balance of these three orders. Adams saw this balance in the American and British constitutions (Arnhart 2009, 73-84; Ryerson 2016).
Adams believed that human nature is such that every human society must decide the question, Who is the first man? "It is a question that must be decided, in every species of gregarious animals, as well as men." In a savage state, this question is decided by physical combat between contenders. But even in the most civilized societies, "the same nature remains," and the contest for first rank must be decided, whether by peaceful or by violent rivalry. The balance of powers answers this question by providing for a supreme executive office to be filled by one with sufficient ambition to strive for it, while still checking the power of this executive officer with the powers of other offices.
At the top of every society, Adams thought, there will be competition among the "first men" for the highest rank. The people of a society will fix their attention on these men at the top. And if there is division over who should fill the dominant position, the society will be thrown into turmoil and eventually civil war. For this reason, societies should select a single person with executive authority separated from the rest of society and from the legislative body. This chief executive unifies a society and directs its management. This executive can then mediate between the passions of the ambitious few who want to rule and the passions of the deferential many who want to be free from oppression by the ambitious few.
Machiavelli and Adams saw this balance of three orders as a republican form of government best designed in conformity to human nature. De Waal and other primatologists can see the evolutionary precursors of this human nature in the political life of chimpanzees.
And, after all, as de Waal has observed, can't we see a lot of chimpanzee politics in Donald Trump? Trump once told People magazine: "Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat. You just can't let people make a sucker out of you."
REFERENCES
Arnhart, Larry. 2009. Darwinian Conservatism: A Disputed Question. Ed. Kenneth Blanchard. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
Arnhart, Larry. 2015. Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Pinker. 4th edition. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Boehm, Christopher. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Boehm, Christopher. 2012. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame. New York: Basic Books.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, and Alastair Smith. 2011. The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics. New York: Public Affairs.
Byrne, Richard, and Andrew Whiten, eds. 1988. Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, Michael, and Damian Grace. 2012. "Machiavellian Monkey Business: Machiavellian Intelligence in Primates and Machiavelli." The Montreal Review, December. Available online.
Jackson, Michael, and Damian Grace. 2015. "Machiavelli's Shadows in Management, Social Psychology, and Primatology." Theoria 62: 67-84. Available online.
Jay, Antony. 1967. Management and Machiavelli: An Inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life. New York: Bantam Books.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1989. The Prince. Trans. Leo Paul de Alvarez. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1996. Discourses on Livy. Trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rubin, Paul H. 2002. Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origins of Freedom. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Ryerson, Richard Alan. 2016. John Adams's Republic: The One, the Few, and the Many. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Turner, Jonathan H., and Alexandra Maryanski. 2008. On the Origin of Societies by Natural Selection. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
de Waal, Frans. 1982. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes. New York: Harper & Row.
de Waal, Frans. 1986. "The Brutal Elimination of a Rival Among Captive Male Chimpanzees." Ethology and Sociobiology 7: 89104.
de Waal, Frans. 1996. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
de Waal, Frans. 1998. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes. Revised edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
de Waal, Frans. 2016. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Some of my other posts on these themes can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here., here., here, and here.
