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Machiavelli Inaccuracies In The Prince

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Machiavelli’s fourteenth century work called The Prince was full of information, and advice on how to be a proper ruler over any domain. This information is only useful to princedoms which are uncommon in today’s world. Modern governments have a president or prime minister as their head of state, with dozens of representatives and ambassadors to do the job that a king, or prince, usually did alone. The fact that there are very few principalities left in the modern world shows Machiavelli’s work is obsolete. Passé advice is never helpful, or requested.
The biggest issue is that The Prince is outdated. This clearly shows when he spends a large portion of the book discussing different principalities. Unfortunately, out of the five he discussed: hereditary, new, mixed, civic, and ecclesiastical only one is partially relevant. A Civic principality is a new state, where the leader is chosen by the people; similarly most modern leaders are chosen either by the collective whole of their population, or by qualified few. As for the other four principalities, they cannot exist because of how they are acquired. In some parts of Europe …show more content…

He gives characteristics of a good prince, as opposed to those of a bad prince. In the 21st century there are very few politicians that fit the description of a “Prince” in existence. If any president, prime minister, or head of state shared the characteristics of Machiavelli’s ideal ruler, he would no longer hold that position. A modern politician should be loved by the people; Machiavelli’s finds it better to be feared than loved. Machiavelli does manage to provide somewhat useful advice for anybody in a leadership position, such as, taking on big projects to earn a reputation, or choosing wise advisors over flatterers. These points were not highlighted or emphasized in Machiavelli’s work, and seemed more like tips instead of necessary rules or

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