The Ancient Playbook: Politics as the Science of Fraud

“Politics is the science of fraud.”

And politicians? They’re the “professors of that science.”

Richard Henry Lee wasn’t talking about a few bad apples. He was warning about the nature of the system itself.

It has been the same playbook throughout history. The founders knew it. The great thinkers they studied knew it. They left us warnings about exactly what to watch for.

The pattern reveals itself through three specific methods that have toppled republics and established tyranny for thousands of years – a system built on fraud, fear, bribery, and corruption.

FRAUD: THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF POLITICS

Politicians rarely conquer by force at the start. They win power by pretending. Pretending to defend liberty. Pretending to uphold law. Pretending to serve the people. But behind the curtain, their purpose is control.

John Dickinson described how this deception worked.

“All artful rulers, who strive to extend their power beyond its just limits, endeavor to give to their attempts as much semblance of legality as possible.”

Dickinson wasn’t spotting something new. He was exposing a tactic used by tyrants for centuries. Take it from the Roman historian Tacitus – writing about Augustus, the man who murdered the Roman Republic.

“Augustus paid great court to the people: the very Name that covered his Usurpation was a compliment to them: he affected to call it the Power of the Tribuneship, an Office first created purely for their protection, and as the strongest effort and barrier of popular Liberty.”

Augustus claimed power in the name of liberty, but used it to end liberty itself.

“It was for their sake and security, he pretended to assume this power, though by it he acted as absolutely as if he had called it the Dictatorial power; such energy there is in words! The Office itself was erected as a bulwark against Tyranny; and by the name of it Tyranny is now supported. In the same manner he used and perverted the Consulship; another Magistracy peculiar to the Commonwealth, but by him abused to the ends of his Monarchy.”

Machiavelli later turned this observation into advice for rulers. He explained that virtue was irrelevant so long as one could imitate it.

“It is not necessary, however, for a prince to possess all the above-mentioned qualities; but it is essential that he should at least seem to have them. I will even venture to say, that to have and to practise them constantly is pernicious, but to seem to have them is useful. For instance, a prince should seem to be merciful, faithful, humane, religious, and upright, and should even be so in reality.”

Appearance alone was not enough. The ruler had to master the art of hypocrisy.

“It is necessary that a prince should know how to color this nature well, and how to be a great hypocrite and dissembler.”

In the early 18th Century, John Trenchard, writing in Cato’s Letters #17 warned that tyrants don’t come with chains on full display.

“Few men have been desperate enough to attack openly, and barefaced, the liberties of a free people. Such avowed conspirators can rarely succeed: The attempt would destroy itself. Even when the enterprise is begun and visible, the end must be hid, or denied.”

Instead they come waving flags and preaching freedom.

“It is the business and policy of traitors, so to disguise their treason with plausible names, and so to recommend it with popular and bewitching colours, that they themselves shall be adored, while their work is detested, and yet carried on by those that detest it.”

FEAR: THE TOOL OF SUBMISSION

Fraud is the entry point. Fear is what keeps people in chains. Once the lie is believed, the next step is to terrify the public into obedience.

For example, James Madison warned that fear of foreign danger – whether real or fake – is always the excuse to rip liberty apart at home.

“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions agst. danger real or pretended from abroad.”

As Trenchard noted, they use war to keep the people panicked, distracted, and overwhelmed.

“They will engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars, to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them both of leisure and inclination to look into publick miscarriages.”

Because a frightened people won’t fight back, they’ll often just cling to their chains.

“Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence, and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying them.”

And once the people have been panicked into submission, Jean Louis De Lolme explained how the real game begins. Take the emergency, turn it into legislation. Then turn the legislation into a permanent weapon of control.

“Those laws which were intended to be equal for all, are soon warped to the private convenience of those who have been made the administrators of them: instituted at first for the protection of all, they soon are made only to defend the usurpations of a few.”

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION: THE CHAINS OF COMFORT

Fraud sells the lie. Fear sells the emergency. That’s when politicians bring out their next weapon: Bribery.

Over the centuries, there have been different names for it. Bread and circuses, social safety nets, stimulus checks, and the like. Anything to make the people comfortable enough to accept their chains.

Tacitus described how Augustus perfected this strategy.

“He likewise won the hearts of the people by filling their bellies, by cheapness of provisions, and plentiful markets. This has infinite effect. If people have plenty at home, they will not be apt to discover many errors or much iniquity in the public, which will always be at quiet when particulars are so.”

Augustus also fed their minds with distractions like entertainment and endless spectacles.

“He frequently entertained them with Shews and Spectacles; a notable means to produce or continue good humour in the populace, to beget kind wishes and zeal for the author of so much joy, and to make them forget Usurpation, Slavery, and every public evil.”

The tactic worked like magic. The people lost all virtue and ambition and ended up conquered, no army was even needed..

“These were indeed used for the ends of corruption and servitude; they rendred the people idle, venal, vicious, insensible of private virtue, insensible of public glory or disgrace; but the things were liked, and the ends not seen, or not minded, so that they had their thorough effect; and the Roman people, they who were wont to direct mighty wars, to raise and depose great Kings, to bestow or take away Empires, they who ruled the world, or directed its rule, were so sunk and debauched, that if they had but bread and shews, their ambition went no higher.”

It wasn’t just Augustus. Thomas Gordon, quoting Sallust, traced this corruption to earlier times. Even in the Roman Republic, politicians bought support with grain. But it was little more than fake generosity to grab power, almost like a precursor to welfare programs of today.

“Spurius Melius, by bestowing on the Roman People great Quantities of Corn, in a Time of great Scarcity, was far enough from confessing to them, that he was thus purchasing Dominion over them; though this was manifestly his Drift; and he therefore became their Benefactor, that he might be their Tyrant.”

Montesquieu explained how bribery rots a republic from the inside, corrupting both rulers and people, who eventually demand more and more from the “public treasure.”

“The corruption will increase among the corrupters, and likewise among those who are already corrupted. The people will divide the public money among themselves, and, having added the administration of affairs to their indolence, will be for blending their poverty with the amusements of luxury. But, with their indolence and luxury, nothing but the public treasure will be able to satisfy their demands.”

And once corruption reaches this stage, even votes are for sale.

“We must not be surprized to see their suffrages given for money. It is impossible to make great largesses to the people without great extortion.”

Algernon Sidney warned that it’s also about corrupting the people so deeply that they lose the will to resist at all.

“he that would introduce an ill magistrate; make one evil who was good, or preserve him in the exercise of injustice when he is corrupted, must always open the way for him by vitiating the people, corrupting their manners, destroying the validity of oaths and contracts, teaching such evasions, equivocations and frauds, as are inconsistent with the thoughts that become men of virtue and courage; and overthrowing the confidence they ought to have in each other, make it impossible for them to unite among themselves.”

Benjamin Franklin cut right to the heart of it: The entire system is an endless cycle of power and plunder.

“The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partizans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure.”

RESTORING LOST PRINCIPLES

Fraud, fear, and bribery are not accidents. But this isn’t just about diagnosing the disease. As St. George Tucker put it, the cure is grounded in a return to first principles.

“To detect the cheat requires a thorough acquaintance with the principles of its original construction, and the purposes to which it was intended to be applied.”

As Montesquieu made clear, the fix is more than just finding new people to wield power, that’s just rearranging the deck chairs.

“When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles: every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

That’s why Richard Henry Lee’s warning is so crucial.

Politics might feel broken. But it’s not. It’s working exactly as fraud demands.

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