SOURCE: "The Machiavellian Tradition, The Ruling Class, Composition and Character of the Ruling Class, and Tendencies in the Ruling Class," in The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, The John Day Company, Inc., 1943, pp. 81-115.

In the following essay, Burnham analyzes Mosca as a neo-Machiavellian.

I. the Machiavellian Tradition

Machiavelli livied and wrote during a great social revolution, through which feudal society, its economy, political arrangement, and culture, were being replaced by the first stage of capitalist society. This revolution occupied a long period of time, and its boundaries cannot be given exact dates. Nevertheless, we may consider that it reached a decisive turning point during Machiavelli's own life, with the discovery of the New World, the rise of the first international stock exchanges, the Protestant religious revolution, the consolidation of the English national state under the Tudors, and the first appointment of bourgeois representatives—by Henry VIII—to the...