The Prince Of Machiavelli 's Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince give the world an insight on his thought about those who rule, virtue, military power, and human nature. He elaborates on his ideal prince who must take power, but also maintain power. The Prince is extremely relevant in modern society and often looked upon as the beginning of modern political thinking. Machiavelli gives this prince an outline of the tools needed to maintain power and reinforces these ideas by giving examples of other leader’s successes and failures. Machiavelli believes that the prince must complete understand the balance between war and government. Understanding this balance and being fluent in both politics and war is crucial for maintaining power. Politicians today still use some of the tactics given by

History 's most prominent leaders have shown extreme congruence. These leaders almost always hold reality over ethics. How can we classify lying and manipulative leaders as immoral when their duplicity is the very reason a society can maintain stability? This idea has of "means justifying the ends" has been a staple in History 's most prosperous of societies. Machiavelli 's novel The Prince was the first stab at understanding this human tendency of what is now known as Machiavellian. Machiavelli grasped the sad reality of our world and did not fall prey to other 's idealistic propaganda. Great leaders understand what the endless potential they hold, they can manipulate their followers to make best of what is possible and above all they understand sacrifice. Modern day Machiavellians and successful leaders think realistically and communicate through idealism. No matter the extremes of your belief, utilizing Machiavellian tactics have the capability to bring anyone to power.

Machiavelli not only outlines the importance of military readiness, but also the very characteristics a prince needs in order to

1. The advice Machiavelli offers a prince advice on how he should act as a ruler. The first piece of advice Machiavelli offers is. that a price who wants to retain his power must know how to do wrong. The second piece of advice is that it is better to be feared than to be loved because your people will only love as long as you are giving them the things they desire, but will immediately turn on you once you cannot accommodate their wishes.

A ruler needs to have an iron fist yet his people need to know that he cares about their good. A leader without an army is no leader at all. Many people follow the advice of Machiavelli in today’s era. Virtually every country has their own army and in several countries the rulers have tough iron of fist when controlling the country. In America the government does not have a very tough iron fist for the people control the country and have the right to decide what transpires in the country. In Russia one person has all the control and they have a tough iron of fist for they control their people down to the smallest aspect. Machiavelli wrote a very good book full of advice which is useful to the leaders today and the leaders in the

While Machiavelli emphasizes power over in relations between the political elite, he discusses a different kind of power in the relations between a prince and the general public. Machiavelli notes that a prince can share power with the people, since a prince can trust the people much more than he can trust the nobles. Nobles "can not be satisfied if a ruler acts honorably but the people can be thus satisfies, because their aims are more honorable than those of the nobles are: for the latter only want to oppress and the former only want to avoid being oppressed" (p.35). The people are not unforgiving and greedy so the prince can place more trust in the people. Since the public can be trusted, the prince can empower the people. An empowered public will protect the ruler rather than overthrow him. Machiavelli suggests providing people with power in terms of arms, since "when you arm them, these weapons become your own" (p. 72). In this way power is an increasing resource, sharing power with the people can result in greater power for the people and for the prince.

The Renaissance represented a new era in which values such as secularism and power became prevalent in society. Machiavelli expresses the need for politics and religion to be separated throughout his book "The Prince". Previously rulers had been restricted by Christian principals, but Machiavelli held the idea that rulers were warranted in any action so as long as it benefited the general public. Machiavelli believed that politics existed outside the realm of religion and morals. Subsequently, he approved of using any means necessary to gain and keep power, including lying, stealing, and murder. During this time Italy's city-states were in political chaos and condottieri roamed the streets. Machiavelli thought it was the ruler's duty to maintain discipline and peace in society at any cost. Despite his intentions to help Italy, Machiavelli's ideas were often seen as immoral and dishonest. The idea of a purely political action where morals were set aside is later referred to as the " Reasons of the state". In addition, Machiavelli felt a ruler must be sly

One of the first principles Machiavelli enforces is a leader’s focus on war and military. A prince should always be prepared for war and have a strong military available. Putin has made it very important to expand Russian military; it is now one of the most powerful militaries in the world. To

The idea of fear is usually given a negative connotation but this is not the case. Yes fear is not particularly healthy all the time but what people do not understand is that, that does not limit its meaning. Some parts of the world are led by treacherous, violent, feared, and hated people but what humans sometimes do not understand, is that fear and hatred have very different definitions. This is one of the concepts that the book ‘The Prince’ by Machiavelli conveys. In the book, Machiavelli shares the characteristics that a good leader should possess.

More advice given to the prince by Machiavelli was on general good governance, meaning how to rule, all supported by historical examples. He writes, "…the prince will avail himself of the occasion… to secure himself, with less consideration for

Machiavelli’s goal in writing The Prince was to not only praise the great examples of rulers and politics he had observed, but also as a plea for someone to come in and liberate Italy. He dedicated The Prince to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was the governor of Florence at the time the book was written, as a token of his devotion. Part of the downfall of Italy was they kept bringing in foreign troops who weren’t loyal to the state. Machiavelli emphasized the importance of having a military made up of a city-state’s own citizens to ensure their loyalty. “The arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous…

According to the text, Machiavelli believes that in order to obtain and keep political power, a prince must stand with the people. I know this because in the text it says “a prince must always live with the same people, but not always live with the same nobles.” I interpreted this as meaning that because the prince will always live with the same people, and not the same nobles, then he might as well choose the people over the nobles. Another reason he should choose the people over the nobles is because the majority is the people; “Add to this, that a prince can never secure himself against a disaffected people, their number being to great, while he may against a disaffected nobility, since their number is small”. He also said that you cannot

In The Morals of the Prince Machiavelli expresses his presumption on how a prince should act. He expresses that a prince should be feared, merciful, stingy, etc. He is right because if a prince is loved and too generous then people will take advantage of him and that will lead to his down fall. A prince must act appropriately to remain in power. Machiavelli gives his best ideas to keep a prince in power.

Machiavelli believes that the ideal prince would have all the qualities that would be considered “good” and would have none of the qualities that people would deem “bad”. These good qualities would be courage, strength, compassion, and having consistent beliefs/stances. Machiavelli also acknowledges that it is impractical in the real world for a prince to only have “good” qualities. For a prince to maintain his power, it is necessary for him to have some “bad” qualities such as deceitfulness and ruthlessness. Castiglione, on the other hand talks about the qualities of an ideal courtier. His description of an ideal courtier is similar to Machiavelli’s “good” traits of a prince. However, unlike Machiavelli, Castiglione does not say that a courtier should have bad traits as well. Castiglione’s ideal models create conflicts with reality. If a courtier is to essentially be the Prince’s right hand man, he would need to be able to have “bad” qualities to help the prince hold on to his power. Machiavelli was an official in the Florentine Republic, this can help us guess that his goal in writing The Prince could be to try and convince others of what kind of ruler is needed to bring prosperity to the republic. Castiglione’s work on the other hand seems to be more

Relying on the needs of the society of that time, Machiavelli comes to the conclusion that the most important task is the formation of a single Italian state (Machiavelli 15). Developing his thoughts, the author comes to the following inference: only a prince can become a leader capable of leading people and building a unified state. It is not a concrete historical personality but someone abstract, symbolic, possessing such qualities that in the aggregate are inaccessible to any living ruler. That is why Machiavelli devotes most of his research to the issue of what qualities should the prince possess to fulfill the historical task of developing a new state. The written work is constructed strictly logically and objectively. Even though the image of an ideal prince is abstract, Machiavelli argues that he should be ruthless, deceiving, and selfish.