URSABLOG: Unkind Legacies

There are a few people in history that I feel genuinely sorry for, not because they had a hard time, or because they were tortured or victimised, but because history itself has been unkind to them. Pontius Pilate may have been ultimately responsible for condemning to death the Son of Man, and by symbolically washing his hands of the whole affair found himself on the wrong side of a whole lot of history.

He is particularly remembered for questioning the nature of truth, and has since been portrayed as cynical and cold-blooded. I disagree: he was simply referring to a basic philosophical question at the same time as trying to acquit the man before him of any wrongdoing:

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”

Marcus Junius Brutus, he of “Et tu, Brutus?” fame, deserves a better reputation as well. Brutus, a senator, had become alarmed at Julius Caesar’s increasingly authoritarian and imperious rule, and was part of a conspiracy of senators to assassinate Caesar, which was duly executed on the Ides of March, leading to chaos in Rome and civil war. Eventually, Octavian (later Augustus) assumed emergency dictatorial powers. Brutus assembled Republican forces in Greece to fight the armies of Octavian and Mark Antony (“lend me your ears”), but was defeated at Philippi (just up the hill from Kavala), and committed suicide rather than face execution by his enemies.

The Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, and the rest – as they say – is history. The Republic for which Brutus and his associates fought became a dictatorship, remaining one for the rest of its existence. History – as they also say – is written by the victors, and the victors ensured Brutus’s name and reputation became one of treachery and betrayal.

But I feel the most hard done by is Niccolo Machiavelli. His book, The Prince, was a reflection on the practices he observed during his own political career. The book is worth reading because, apart from being one of the foundational works of political science, he suggests that moral behaviour and politics are mutually exclusive. He went further: amoral (as opposed to immoral) behaviour in politics is acceptable if it leads to social stability and a secure state. His other major work on politics, Discourses on Livy, discusses in detail the advantages of a republican form of government, which the  Founders of the United States cited in their arguments over the Constitutional powers of the office of the President. The irony of this at present cannot go unnoticed.

However, for those that have actually read the book, opinion is divided. Some believe Machiavelli described the corruption of Italian politics of his day, whilst others have declared The Prince as an instruction manual for despots and tyrants. For most however, and usually they have not read the book, ‘Machiavellian’ has become an insult: devious, underhand, nasty, manipulative, even evil. It is nothing of the sort: in my view the book is the result of a cold-eyed reflection on how politics actually works, once performance, pomp, circumstance and spin are brushed aside.

The term ‘Machiavellian’ has been misappropriated. It is not a ‘how to’ book, or a moral (or amoral) guide. It was meant to be read by those intelligent and wise enough to understand what his observations and reflections mean, and reflect on them in turn, and then act. Even though the book was written in the early 16th Century its core ideas remain very fresh.

In business, and in tramp shipping in particular, I think The Prince is essential reading once we can get beyond the ‘Machiavellian’ stigma. Here are a few quotes at random: I present these not as a moral guide on how to be a good human being, but how to understand how players in the marketplace – and indeed how the markets themselves – behave.

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”

“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.”

“A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.”

“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.”

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”

I could go on and on.

There is much in The Prince that I think is bad advice, or not applicable to the markets, or the players within them, or just simply outdated. I do not think – for example – that fortune is a woman that needs to be beaten if I want to stay on top. Far from it; apart from anything else I like women, and fortune is not something that I invest too much time thinking about. Some things are appropriate for their times, and – as Machiavelli has pointed out – become inappropriate when the times change.

I sat down to a dinner earlier in the year with friends of mine in the shipping industry, and as the wine in the bottles diminished, and our conversation grew more expansive, the talk turned to those in the shipping industry that made a difference and that history remained kind to. Onassis of course was mentioned, followed quickly but less consequentially – as in life – by Niarchos. Many others were mentioned, some still remembered by those with longer memories, although now mostly forgotten by most. We then compared the names of current owners and – for want of a better word – personalities to the historical greats. It was instructive.

My personal heroes in shipping, mostly Greek – like Panagopoulos, Rethymnis and Kulukundis, and many, many more – were not larger than life characters who swashbuckled their way through markets and fashionable resorts, grabbing headlines as they went, but were hard-working, connected, ambitious thinkers who changed the nature of shipping for the better. At times they were wise, principled and observant – and had no illusions about the world and the market they worked in – and used the tools available to them to succeed. They were also at times difficult men to work for.

Are there people following in their footsteps? Ones who prefer low-profile progress rather than column inches in TradeWinds and attendance at big name conferences and award ceremonies? Yes, I believe there are. They are the ones that question prevailing, fashionable truths, who stand for their principles by living them rather than broadcasting them, and observe and reflect on the amoral nature of markets, and then act appropriately.

If I sound like I am avoiding making a definitive statement on how those of us in shipping should live, how we should act – ethically, morally, philosophically – then you are right. We have to work it out for ourselves. I can also note Machiavelli’s sound advice:

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”

And also remember Mark Antony’s eulogy of Brutus (as written by Shakespeare):

“This was the noblest Roman of them all:

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;

He, only, in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.”

Our legacy is out of our hands, although I do at the very least hope I will be remembered occasionally over a glass of wine. In the meantime, the only recommendation I can make is to read, listen, observe, but also act, authentically, taking risks as well as making a stand. What we do and say, in shipping and in life, is consequential.

Simon Ward