'for a nobody starting with nothing and from nowhere in particular'

Machiavelli was a later discovery, and in my view he went a lot further than
Marx on a number of issues, for example in trying to conceive the conditions and
kinds of political action in its pure form, that is to say at the conceptual level. What
struck me again was the radical manner in which he took into account the
aleatory nature of every conjuncture. In addition, he revealed that what was
needed, if Italian national unity was to be achieved, was for a nobody starting
with nothing and from nowhere in particular, but outside the framework of
an established State, to bring together the fragmented elements of a divided
country, without any preconceived notion of unity which might have been
formulated in terms of existing political concepts (all of which were bad).We
have not yet, I believe, explored all the implications of this piece of political
thinking, the first of its kind and sadly without sequel. - Louis Althusser