Machiavelli Is Dead: Why Politics Without Property Rights, Rules, And Moral Limits Cannot Work

Machiavelli Is Dead: Why Politics Without Property Rights, Rules, And Moral Limits Cannot Work

By Jenny Joy Schumann, Mises Wire | February 06, 2026 Javier Milei’s Davos speech marks a decisive break with a dominant political mindset: the belief that upholding and expanding political power justifies moral compromise and that political authority should be judged primarily by effectiveness rather than legitimacy. This “might makes right” logic was perhaps most coherently formulated as a political philosophy by the early modern thinker Nicco…