Scholars of race in antiquity commonly claim that Aristotle holds protoracist views about barbaroi or non-Greeks. But a careful examination of Aristotle's remarks in his Politics about slavery, non-Greek political institutions, and Greek and non-Greek natural qualities calls into question such claims. No doubt, Aristotle held views at odds with modern liberalism, such as his views about gender subordination and the exploitation of slave and nonslave labor. But claims that Aristotle holds protoracist views are regularly but erroneously asserted without careful consideration of relevant textual evidence. I argue that Aristotle neither categorically distinguishes Greeks and non-Greeks nor does he endorse the claim that Greeks are categorically superior to non-Greeks. Indeed, Aristotle regularly draws upon non-Greek political institutions in his own formulation of the best constitution and he praises the non-Greek constitution of Carthage as superior to that of Greek constitutions such as Sparta and Crete.

This essay offers an alternative to influential interpretations of elites, peoples, and senates in Niccolò Machiavelli's theory of mixed republics. It analyzes in greater depth both Machiavelli's ascription of the morally objectionable and politically dangerous trait of insolenzia to the nobles as a social class; and his justifications for the establishment of senates as institutions that partially remedy the problem of aristocratic insolence—justifications that depart from traditional Ciceronian and Polybian standards. Machiavelli demonstrates in The Prince, the Discourses, and the Florentine Histories that republics with senates, such as ancient Rome, manage to mollify aristocratic insolence, while those lacking them, like modern Florence, permit such insolence to proliferate unchecked. Moreover, Machiavelli intimates, republics that collectively gather nobles within senate chambers are afforded the opportunity to entirely eliminate aristocratic insolence. The essay concludes with an analysis of senatorial institutions in Machiavelli's “Discursus on Florentine Matters.”

Modern commentators tend to view John Locke's theory of money either in terms of a process of naturalization placing currency completely beyond the realm of politics or as an effort to provide a moral foundation for a convention subject to epistemic instability. This study builds on the latter interpretation but offers an alternative to the standard view that Locke sought to remove monetary policy from the scope of ongoing political deliberation. While Locke emphasized the concept of trust necessary for the networks of credit and economic exchange, his account of money also prioritized prudential judgments and distinct discursive contexts, especially relating to distributive justice. Locke's economic tracts give reason to reconsider his putative role as founder of the “sound money” doctrine and shed light on aspects of his statecraft only partly visible in his more familiar political works.

Montesquieu's Persian Letters offers a remarkable guide into the methods and substance of political education, and especially political education at a distance. In two particular series of epistolary exchanges between distant letter writers and recipients we are shown a talented educator in action, one especially adept on two fronts. First, in these exchanges Usbek shows himself to be uniquely sensitive to the concerns of his interlocutors. Second, his sensitivity to these concerns shapes not only the methods by which he presents his political teaching but also its substance. This paper argues that Usbek's political education speaks, by design, to the inclinations of its recipients, and that this political education is itself grounded on the teaching that the best regime in practice is that which most effectively responds to the inclinations of its inhabitants.

More and more decisions in our societies are made by algorithms. What are such decisions like, and how do they compare to human decision-making? I contrast central features of algorithmic decision-making with three key elements—plurality, natality, and judgment—of Hannah Arendt's political thought. In “Arendtian practices,” human beings come together as equals, exchange arguments, and make joint decisions, sometimes bringing something new into the world. With algorithmic decision-making taking over more and more areas of life, opportunities for “Arendtian practices” are under threat. Moreover, there is the danger that algorithms are tasked with decisions for which they are ill-suited. Analyzing the contrast with Arendt's thinking can be a starting point for delineating realms in which algorithmic decision-making should or should not be welcomed.