The Liberty of Servants

A compelling look at how a people can be unfree even though they are not oppressed Italy is a country of free political institutions, yet it has become a nation of servile courtesans, with Silvio Berlusconi as their prince. This is the controversial argument that Italian political philosopher and noted Machiavelli biographer Maurizio Viroli puts forward in The Liberty of Servants . Drawing upon the classical republican conception of liberty, Viroli shows that a people can be unfree even though t