The Death of Machiavelli

A thesis that positive-sum, win-together approaches are starting to be at an advantage to zero-sum, win-against approaches.

Here I summarise a thesis that I refer to as “The Death of Machiavelli”.

We are undergoing a disruptive pendulum shift in macro dynamics that is shifting the advantageous strategy away from closed, structural & zero-sum approaches, towards open, emergent & positive sum approaches.

This deeply transformative shift is being driven by changing macro dynamics flowing from our increasingly hyper-networked and digital lives, such that the benefits of momentum from open win-together approaches is starting to be at an advantage to the benefits of defensibility from closed win-against approaches.

These approaches can be juxtaposed as:

• Networks, protocols, collectives and cooperative emergence (non-rivalrous):
  open, interoperable, collaborative, emergent, autonomous, adaptive (dynamic stability), positive-sum. Produces evolutionary, holonic, adaptive structures.

• Monopolies, walled gardens, companies and hierarchical power (rivalrous):
  closed, extracting, competitive, structural, controlling, defensible (rigid stability), zero-sum. Produces monolithic, hierarchical, rigid structures.

Machiavelli is far from dead yet, but he is feeling very sleepy. If you pay attention, you will see evidence of this everywhere, embodied in the ideas & perspectives that people have, in the strategies & approaches that we use to bring them to life, in the technologies that we build & use, and in the essence of the things that succeed.

If you look around, you may be tempted to think nothing has changed. All of the old fixtures of machiavellian, zero-sum, extractive behaviour seems to remain. Yet, if you look closer, you will start to see that they have lost some of their hold. New possibilities and approaches begin to open up, they begin to work, and more people seem more interested to support them.

If correct, this thesis has huge implications for how we get things done, build value, do business, coordinate with each other, make decisions, how we live, and the day to day details of our lives. The Death of Machiavelli will drive the rise of the protocol over the platform, of the cooperative over the company, and of the collective commons.

When advantage shifts, change does not occur immediately. The old world and the old patterns of advantage continue on much as they were, coasting upon their accumulated reserves of advantage. Slowly but surely, what is systematically advantageous wins over what is not.

Aristotle said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man”. Likewise, if you give me a clear understanding of the dynamics of a system, I will show you the outcome in that system. What wins in a handful of games might be chance, but what wins over thousands or millions of games, is what has the advantage.

The edifices of the old way thus stand, seemingly mighty, timeless and integral. Yet despite appearances, when the old ways are no longer oriented towards what is systematically advantageous, they are eroded at the edges and hollowed out from the inside a little at a time, until one day:

“And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
- Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition