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Political Thought
Giuseppe Mazzini gave the world some of its most original thought. In his deeply passionate writings, Mazzini cut a heterodox approach to politics that stood out from the political divisions of liberalism versus socialism that dominated the conversation of his day. A romantic patriotic republican, Mazzini combined a pragmatic approach to ideas with a revolutionary spirit and created a distinctly idiosyncratic approach that made him stand out as one of the leaders of Europe's movement towards democracy.
What Did Mazzini Believe?
Mazzini was an opponent of both rights-orientated liberal cosmopolitanism and Marxist communism and believed that there must be a harmonization between the individual and the association. An individual is endowed with rights and must be free to exercise those rights, but they must also recognize their individual duties to society in order to collaborate towards progress. Mazzini saw nationality as the only practical means in which an individual could make their contribution to humanity, that, through serving their country and their fellow citizens, they could also serve the wider world.
In other words, Mazzini saw the nation as a bridge between the individual and humanity, rather than as an end in itself. Mazzini took this concept of democratic nationality to promote an “alliance of the Peoples” and that, rather than a global revolution based on class, the democratic revolutions should be brought about on the concept of self-governing nations that would ensure lasting international peace. Where there was a despotic regime, political violence was justified and necessary to fight it, but he was utterly against violence towards civilians.
Mazzini’s ideas have been left on the shelf of political history. Though occasionally picked up by the odd character in history, such as the Chinese republican revolutionary Sun Yat-sen or US president Woodrow Wilson, as a movement, “Mazzinianism” has never really materialized. However, below is an overview of Mazzini's political thought and the major components of it to perhaps try and explain the main ideas that he developed during his life.
Duties & Rights
Mazzini developed his concept of individual duties in his most famous work, On the Duties of Man. Published in 1860 as a compilation of essays that he had written throughout his revolutionary life, within it he expounds on one of his most original ideas.
Harmonization of Individuality and Society
Mazzini’s concept of individual duties, complementary to, as well as critical of, individual rights, adds another dimension to an individual political existence and is aimed at fully synthesizing the idea of individuality with the concept of social action without having one suppress the other. Indeed, this is actually the very crux of the issue for him, for in his essay Humanity and Country (1836), he opens with:
“We believe that these two terms need to be harmonized within the European system, like the two terms individuality and association need to be harmonized within every state. this is the real problem for which the nineteenth century has been seeking a solution. every political doctrine that departs from this approach to pursue its own path, and every organization that suppresses one of these two concepts for the sake of the other, will sooner or later result in either anarchy or tyranny.”
If we take the approach of liberalism, which stresses the primacy of the individual above all other values, the achievement of individual liberties will eventually lead to anarchy where the strong oppresses the weak and individuals are regularly pitted against one another in the exercise of their own rights. If we take the approach of Communism, whereby individual “liberty of each should be violated for the well-being of all”, would result in a despotic regime. Mazzini believed that the solution in harmonizing these two seemingly opposing concepts was his notion of individual duties.
Harmonization, Not Blending
Mazzini emphasized that the concepts of individuality and association needed to be harmonized to work in tandem with one another, rather than merely blended. In other words, neither individuality nor association ought be diluted, but instead taken as equal values in and of themselves. Mazzini's solution for this was to use the nation as the point of support.
Eternal Duties
Your individual duties are eternal and are not determined by the given government or political system of the day. In other words, you have duties to yourself, your family, your country, and to humanity that you must follow regardless of the situation. You have the duty to develop yourself and your faculties to make yourself a better person; you have the duty to look after your family; you have the duty to promote the rights and call out the oppression of your fellow nationals; and by so doing, you contribute, in your own small way, to the progress of humanity.
In this sense, Mazzini’s idea of individual duties is his entire ethical system, and he believed that there needed to be a definite ideological shift in mentality in order to achieve progress. And this is why duties provide the essential link between individual rights and social action, since individuals require individual liberty to continue pursuing their own self-development as well as need to bond together in social activism in order to achieve these rights.
Insufficiency of Rights
The Duties of Man is critical of the sufficiency of individual rights in order to achieve social progress. Mazzini was addressing the Italian working classes in order to win them over from Liberalism and Communism, and he points out that, despite the advances in individual liberties, there has been little material improvement in the conditions of the working class. In his Introduction, he points out:
“But of what use were Rights when acquired by men who had not the means of exercising them? Of what use was mere liberty of education to mean who had neither time nor means to profit by it? Of what use was mere liberty of commerce to those who possessed neither merchandise, capital, nor credit?”
Despite the rights gained by workers to education, freedom of expression, and association, they are useless to people who do not have the means by which they can exercise them. In addition, he adds a moral condemnation that, in bringing working-class people together, the emphasis on individual rights has divided the working class in seeking their own self-interest and creating unnecessary conflict.
The Role of Duties in Government
To carry on material improvement, a government that believed in the idea of individual duties would focus on education rather than pushing them by force was Mazzini’s ideal. Mazzini believed that promoting class collaboration rather than class conflict was the solution in order to improve the conditions of the working class, and he also believed in a social democratic synthesis of state involvement along with individual initiative to help alleviate the conditions. Mazzini was therefore fiercely opposed to Communism that, in his eyes, would enforce association at the cost individual liberty and enforce duties at the point of a gun.
Democratic Nationality
Tying in with his idea of individual duties, the most central idea of Mazzini’s political thought was his conceptualization of democratic nationality. Mazzini personally rejected the label “nationalist” which he used to describe the chauvinism exhibited by the monarchs to justify war and imperialism. He described it as the “selfish Nationalism of absolute powers”. Instead, he preferred the label patriot republican to describe his political position.
Defining the Nation
In contrast to the chauvinistic nationalism of the kings, Mazzini promoted his idea of democratic nationality which was built on the principle of national self-determination in the form out a republic as the only way in which one could establish a democracy. Mazzini never really lays out a hard, objective definition of what constitutes a nation, although he does states that:
“A nation is a larger or smaller aggregate of human beings bound together into an organic whole by agreement in a certain number of real particulars, such as ethnicity, language, physiognomy, historical tradition, intellectual peculiarities, or active tendencies.”
By this definition, he considered Russia, England, French, Spanish, the Italians to all constitute a nationality.
Though he did not allude to any hard definition for what was the common factor that would qualify as a nationality, he did believe that it was more or less organic and was defined by some prepolitical factors. This was even more clear in his opinion that the despotic governments that ruled Europe at the time could never represent the people and that unelected governments sat on top of nationalities:
“A nation is a more permanent thing than a political system, and it ought to be guaranteed by higher maxims of inviolability. Destroy the current political system in Russia, Spain, or England, and Russia, Spain, and England will still remain as real as before”
The Moral Purpose of Nationality
However, Mazzini’s real originality when it came to the nature of the nation and nationality was not so much in its definition but in its purpose. Mazzini regarded nationality more than just a mere cultural entity but actually as a political principle or a moral action. His belief was that nationality and individuals’ duty to it were the only moral option between inaction and tyranny.
The Nation as a Pivot for Humanity
Mazzini’s concept of the nation came in answer to the same dilemma between individual liberties and social action. It was really born out of his critique of cosmopolitanism, by which he referred to universalist ideologies such as Liberalism or Communism. Mazzini was himself influenced by Saint-Simonianism, an early form of utopian socialism, and, as we’ll discuss in a bit, was a believer in a universalist end to his political thought. However, Mazzini was pessimistic about Liberalism’s ability to bring about its goal of universal rights since it relied entirely on the sole individual. In his essay Nationality & Cosmopolitanism, he states that:
“Every organization that is to concretely affect reality requires a starting point and a goal. to operate effectively, every lever needs both a pivot on which to rest and an object to be raised or moved. For us, the end is humanity; the pivot, or point of support, is the country. I freely admit that for Cosmopolitans, the end is also humanity; but their pivot or point of support is man, the isolated individual. therein lies almost all the difference between us and the Cosmopolitans, but it is a major difference.”
In order to avoid this, Mazzini believed that the principle of the nation was the ideal “pivot” to support the individual in improving the lot of humanity. The nation therefore was an easier way for an individual to participate in both national life as well as contribute to humanity. In this way, the nation could never be seen as an end in itself, like in other forms of nationalist ideologies, but instead as a means for achieving Humanity. Like in the concept of duties where each individual could contribute to their wider society, “nations are the individuals of humanity”.
The Special Mission of Nations
This leads on to one of Mazzini’s more controversial claims: that different nations were endowed with a “special mission”. This particularly claim was misinterpreted and twisted as a justification for Italian Fascist imperialism during the 1920s and 1930s. However, Mazzini’s idea was that each nationality had something to contribute to humanity and should be an active participant in international affairs, rather than adopt an isolationist existence. In this sense, all nations had both equal value and an equal part to play towards the world’s progressive and wasn’t a justification for one dominating over any other. Only through the nation could an individual fully contribute to international life.
Humanity
For Giuseppe Mazzini, the concept of Humanity was the ultimate moral and political goal of all action, understood through the lens of his deep religious belief. Humanity was not just a collection of people, but a collective, continuous entity working to fulfill God's plan on Earth. This goal represented a universal law where all humans would eventually be considered equal, free, and bound by an ethical regard for one another. While this ideal could likely never be perfectly fulfilled, it was the end toward which all progress must strive.
The Moral Imperative of Humanity
Mazzini was transformative in turning Herder’s descriptive cosmopolitanism into a direct doctrine for political action, making Humanity a moral imperative. The importance of this goal as the primary one in his political thought is paramount.
For Mazzini, Humanity represented a higher law of action that came from the very essence of one's humanness. The fact of our social existence, that we do not exist in isolation, makes duties to others a natural cause. However, he insisted these duties were owed not just to one's family or country, but to the well-being of Humanity as a whole. This was the true purpose of life.
The Nation as the "Workshop"
If Humanity was the goal, the nation was the means to achieve it. Mazzini regarded nationalities as having been divinely drawn, each with a distinct destiny or contribution to make toward humankind's progress. As he put it:
"Nationalities... appear to me to have been traced long ago by the finger of Providence on the map of Europe".
He regarded nationalities, therefore, to be the "workshops of humanity." Individuals would be oriented toward their country, but it was through their country that they could contribute to Humanity. This concept was Mazzini's antidote to chauvinistic ideologies where the nation was the ultimate end. In his view, the nation's destiny was to work for the benefit of all. Each individual nation had a divine mission, as no single nation could achieve progress alone.
The Mechanism of Progress
Mazzini's idea of Humanity connected the individual to the divine across all of human existence. Since we are not divine ourselves, we can only realize God's plan imperfectly. Humanity as a collective, however, could progressively improve from generation to generation. He explains this in The Duties of Man:
"In your terrestrial existence, limited both in education and capacity, the realisation of this Divine Idea, can only be most imperfect and momentary. Humanity alone, continuous in existence through the passing Generations, continuous in intellect through the contributions of all its members, is capable of gradually evolving, applying, and glorifying the Divine Idea."
The central idea here is Progress. Echoing Herder, Mazzini emphasized the need for individual cultivation. He believed that Humanity is pushed forward by the deeds of those striving toward a universal truth. These achievements make new advances possible for the next generation, progressively improving the human condition. For this to happen, an individual must develop their faculties and help educate others, contributing to the moral cultivation of all through their association with others in their country.
Republicanism
Mazzini’s republicanism was the cornerstone of his political and moral philosophy, inextricably linked to his belief in democracy, the primacy of duty, and the achievement of Italian national unity. For Mazzini, the republican form of government was not merely a political preference but a moral necessity.
The Republican Creed
Mazzini viewed the republic and democracy as virtually synonymous. He insisted democracy was primarily an "educational problem with an ethical purpose" to regenerate humanity's moral and intellectual condition. This creed was founded on duty rather than individual rights, arguing that all political activities must be subordinate to a moral end. Mazzini famously summarized democracy as "the progress of all through all under the leading of the best and wisest".
Mazzini argued the republican form was logically and morally necessary, as democratic legislation was "impossible under any form of monarchy." He rejected hereditary kingships as inherently despotic, declaring royalty "a hereditary lie." For Italy specifically, republicanism was preferred due to powerful republican memories and regional jealousies that made imposing a single monarchy difficult. His republicanism was intrinsically linked to his demand for Italian Unity, which he argued must, however, incorporate local checks to preserve liberty.
Institutional Structure and Safeguards
Mazzini’s vision for the republic included strong participatory elements. It was to be based on the sovereignty of the nation, defined as citizens represented by elected representatives chosen through universal suffrage, which he saw as an essential tool for political education.
A Constituent Assembly would create the new institutional structure. Despite his focus on duty, Mazzini believed certain individual rights were inviolable, including personal liberty, religious faith, and freedom of opinion, press, and association; "over these, not even the People have any right". He was strictly opposed to administrative centralization, advocating for local self-government as a necessary check on central power, though he was skeptical of federalism.
Opposition to Political Extremes
Mazzini positioned his democratic republicanism against both conservative monarchies and emerging radical ideologies, especially communism. He was a trenchant critic of Marxist socialism, fearing its materialism and state control would create a "collective tyranny" and reproduce "the position of the masters of slaves in olden times".
Mazzini warned that any attempt by a minority to impose a social order from above would lead to despotism. Against these extremes, he proposed that true republican democracy must arise through voluntary association from below.
Internationalism
Mazzini’s international thought has inspired a great number of the national self-determination movements around the world. From Gandhi and Nehru, Sun Yat-sen, David Ben-Gurion, and Golda Meir, José Rizal of the Philippines, as well as Woodrow Wilson, all have in some way cited Mazzini as an inspiration. In fact, the essence of the post-WWI world order that Wilson inspired was the basis of the liberal internationalism that was inherent in Mazzini’s writings, and in fact, Mazzini laid down a complex and original philosophy towards international relations.
Holy Alliance of the Peoples
Mazzini’s real beginning point when it comes to his international thought is at his opposition to despotism. With Europe ruled by multinational empires and tyrannical monarchs, Mazzini saw the international divide not between different countries with historical ties, but between democracies and autocracies. He saw that, especially after the fall of the Roman Republic, these autocracies would rush to protect each other when the other requested it. When Pope Pius IX called on the French to overthrow the nascent democracy, it was an example to Mazzini that existed an “alliance of Princes” that sought to put down revolutionary action.
Mazzini believed that to oppose this alliance, there should be a “Holy Alliance of the Peoples” in order to promote these revolutions on the basis of national self-determination:
“Europe is thus divided into two camps with their own flags. the first flag reads: People, Right, and National liberty. the second flag reads: monarchy, power, privilege, servitude. But the latter also reads: alliance of the princes. Our faith, logic, and the need for a common defense demand that we add to the first flag: alliance of the peoples.”
The Doctrine of Counterintervention
Though Mazzini certainly believed that political violence was justified in fighting despotic regimes, he was strongly against terrorism and the targeting of civilians, he did not advocate engaging in a “crusade” for democracy and self-determination.
In his commentary on England’s leadership in the world, he stated that he did not want Britain to send troops abroad to fight foreign dictators just because. Instead, he argued that peoples needed to set themselves free of a dictatorship, but when the dictator called on outside help, free nations had the moral obligation to counterintervene.
His idea of counterintervention was for powerful free countries to ally themselves with the causes of democratic insurrections and intervene militarily when the dictator took steps to present it in an unfair way. Returning to the Roman Republic, Mazzini said that England should have threatened and followed through against France’s military intervention, sending troops to defend the Republic alongside its volunteers.
Critique of Noninterventionism
Mazzini was opposed to isolationism and lamented England’s noninterventionist stance at the time. Since he saw the international world not as the alliances forged by governments, but rather free peoples fighting against their despots, he regarded isolationism as immoral, stating that:
“Neutrality between conflicting principles is immoral in theory; it is, besides, impossible in practice.”
A Vision for a United States of Europe
For Mazzini, noninterventionism could only be achieved between democratic countries. It’s quite often pointed out that two liberal democracies have never been at war against one another, and for Mazzini, this is no surprise. He believed that with economic interdependence and diplomacy, nonintervention in each other’s affairs would be the norm.
Mazzini saw no possibility of coexistence between despots and democracies and that the only way to progress was the eventual spread of democracy everywhere and based on the values of “universal nationals’ self-determination”. This was best represented in his European-wide organization, Young Europe, which aimed at establishing an eventual United States of Europe.
Economics
Mazzini’s time in London running up the revolts of 1848 was fraught with both frustration and rivalry. Though his lack of social connections prevented him from actively participating in the political revolutions being planned for Italy, he still contributed toward patriotic efforts through his newspaper and regular submissions to political journals. He began to admire the English systems for their respect for freedom of speech as well as their political system, seeing the quaint localism (as influenced by John Stuart Mill) as a counter to federalist ideas within a unified Italy.
Mazzini's economic views were deeply intertwined with his moral, political, and social philosophy, emphasizing duty, association, and social progress over self-centered individualism and pure materialism. He sought social justice, viewing social reform as the immediate goal of revolution.
“The Economical Question”
The core principle of the economic for Mazzini is highlighted in the final chapter of his On Duties of Man, “The Economical Question”. Where Marxism is characterized by “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, Mazzini’s economic is characterized by the following:
“The remedy is to be found in the union of labour and capital in the same hands.
When society shall recognise no other distinction save the distinction between producers and consumers, or rather when every man shall be alike producer and consumer; when the profits of labour, instead of being parcelled out among that series of intermediates, which (beginning with the capitalist and ending with the retailer) frequently increases the price of production fifty per cent., but shall belong entirely to those who perform the labour, all the permanent causes of your poverty will be removed.”
What this essentially meant for Mazzini was, as opposed to both communism and liberalism, that the individual citizen ought to be a worker and the investor in his own livelihood. In practice, this principle meant that the economy should consist mostly of small businesses and a strong middle class. It is this guiding principle from which Mazzinian economics can be created.
The Moral Foundation of Economic Life
Mazzini strongly criticized the economic philosophies of individualism and utilitarianism prevalent during his time. He associated the "theory of rights" with selfishness and self-centeredness, believing that the Enlightenment theory of rights taught that society was instituted merely to secure material interests. He condemned utilitarianism (such as Bentham's philosophy), arguing that the sole focus on individual material interest (utility or the "greatest possible happiness") could lead to anarchy unless balanced by a recognition of social duty.
Mazzini insisted that rights must be matched by duties. He believed the new age required collective purposes marked by the primacy of duty and various forms of association. He argued that material interests—like individual property and wealth—are not inherently good or evil, but are simply means that must be used correctly, guided by a moral end.
Views on Property and Wealth Distribution
Mazzini sought to achieve greater equality without abolishing private property. He argued that private property must remain, defining property resulting from labor as a "good and useful" symbol of human individuality, representing the activity of the body (as thought represents the activity of the soul). He saw it as a stimulus to labor and a guarantee for improving the work itself.
He also criticized the legal traditions (like entails and primogeniture in Britain) that concentrated property in the hands of a small minority. He strongly disliked wealth accumulated by the "idle man" through the labor of others and viewed the concentration of territorial property as "feudal servitude" and a "disastrous brake on economic development".
His aim was to spread ownership more widely among citizens, believing property should ideally be earned rather than inherited. He wished to modify property organization to align it with equality and progress, rather than abolishing it.
The Social Question and Class Conflict
Mazzini addressed the plight of the working class and peasantry while firmly rejecting class warfare. He consistently opposed any form of organized class conflict or class consciousness, fearing it would undermine national unity and the patriotic bond among citizens. He saw class war as disruptive and potentially leading to absolutist reaction.
At the same time, he recognized the extreme poverty of the masses and insisted that political freedom was a "fraud" without greater equality. He advocated that the working class, currently possessing "nothing, except their hands", needed citizenship in the state to build a society founded on work.
He appealed to the middle classes to support the social improvement of the workers as a matter of moral duty and for the sake of social stability, defining "the people" as an aggregate of all classes. He also viewed the subjection of the rural population as morally wrong and supported the emancipation of peasants, advocating for the transformation of sharecropping into bourgeois freeholdings. Class collaboration was paramount for Mazzini, and his concept of duties he used to appeal to the middle-class for them to help their working-class brothers and sisters. In the Social Question (1850), he writes:
“By what means might the concord we invoke between the working classes and the middle classes be realized?
There is one clearly best means; and everyone knows what it is for us. But even today, and under the sway of dominant institutions, that concord in the movement can be initiated, and the ways are many. First among all—and without it every suggestion will go unheard—is this for the middle classes, the point on which we keep insisting: to study, with true love and a deliberate intention to help it, the workers’ movement. A moral improvement in ourselves always stands at the head of every great change, of every great enterprise.”
Association, Trade, and Taxation
Mazzini emphasized concrete economic reforms centered on collective self-help and fiscal equity. His major constructive proposal was the peaceful and gradual substitution of associated labor for the wage labor system, where workers would unite capital and labor in the hands of free and voluntary associations (cooperatives). He encouraged workers' associations for mutual aid, including self-help, free schools, libraries, and health insurance. He proposed establishing councils with equal representation of employers and workers, presided over by a neutral judge, to arbitrate industrial disputes. This cooperative scheme was intended to eventually destroy capitalism without endangering liberty.
He was also ahead of most contemporary politicians in demanding compulsory insurance for sickness and old age.
He admired the principle of free trade and was keenly aware that Italy's division into eight separate states, each with its own currency, customs barriers, and weights and measures, created "economic nonsense" and hindered trade. He argued that a "common market" inside a united Italy was urgently needed to bring economic prosperity and believed that growing commercial interdependence among nations acted as a powerful stimulus for peace.
Finally, he called for radical reform of the tax system, insisting that taxation should be proportional to wealth. He advocated that the fiscal system exempt the "bare necessities of life" from any direct or indirect taxation. He wanted to abolish indirect taxes on essential food and impose an income tax proportionate to wealth, as well as an inheritance tax on large landed properties.