An example of a prince that would not be ideal in Machiavelli 's eyes would be Adolf Hitler. Adolf was the leader of the Nazi Party and a German politician. Adolf was extremely anti-jew, so bad that he made concentration camps to have all of these jews killed. They were gathered from all over Germany to be put in camps and killed or tortured. According to Machiavelli’s standards, Adolf had part of a good leader right.
The Prince The essay The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, is considered the basis for modern politics and is still very relevant today. He provides means of how how prince should govern and come to power. Machiavelli’s theory is that there is no “good” or “bad” in politics, that the only thing that matters is the stability of the state. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond says Machiavelli is “ a crystal-clear realist who understands the limits and uses of power.” Diamond says that The Prince is still very relevant today because Machiavelli insists “that we are not helpless at the hands of bad luck.” Machiavelli starts The Prince out by giving descriptions on which types of kingdoms are easier to rule. Kingdoms that are hereditary, they are easy to rule but difficult to take and a kingdom that is easy to take is difficult to rule.
Machiavelli influences the modern political science we still use today, and continue to pathe his paths. His book, The Prince uses Renaissance values and applies them to politics, intriguing most everyone. His book targets powerful men, teaching them how to gain and maintain power. “It is not al all necessary for a prince to have all the good qualities which I have named, but it is necessary to seem to have them” (Machiavelli). Although Machiavelli gained his power, not every man can, so Machiavelli is saying that in order to become an idol, you just have to project the idea of power.
By reply to the question right after, Machiavelli pitches the idea to the heirs of these imperiums, providing a higher prospect of them accepting that ideology as an answer. Machiavelli has such confidence that fear is much safer to be loved. He believes that by utilizing fear, the common men that will easily betray dare not to ever turn their backs for fear of death. For the terror of their common and worthless lives to their merciless tyrant. That sentence provides the main idea for the rest of his book, it helps prove his point by giving us the straight forward answer to the premise of the book.
While Machiavelli advises a ruler to be feared by his people in order to best consolidate his power, I argue that the best way to live a political life depends largely on the circumstances: with different situations calling for the prince to employ different characteristics that would be most effective to each circumstance. Machiavelli’s call for vigilance and distrust may be valuable to a prince and the state he governs in some situations, but toxic in other situations, as it hurts the society he attempts to better. Machiavelli argues that while the prince may superficially have allies and advisors, he must remain alone and independent at heart. This seems to assume that Machiavelli wants the prince to harbor a fundamental distrust of others, encouraging constant vigilance in order for him to keep his place on the throne. Indeed, Machiavelli describes men in simple, untrustworthy terms:
In the beginning, Machiavelli says the ruler should not be concerned with what his people want; however, this does not mean the ruler should not be concerned about having support from his people. Machiavelli simply means a ruler should not go about understanding exactly what the people want and trying to fulfill the needs of the people. A ruler should know whether or not this support exists, and if it does not, he should go about his own ways to acquire this support. Machiavelli talks about different methods to gain this support, but mostly he stresses the importance of the support in helping maintain a calm and controlled rule. Internal support and agreement is crucial in any form of rule.
But since it is impossible to have and exercise them all, because the conditions of human life simply do not allow it, a prince must be shrewd enough to avoid the public disgrace of those vices that would lose him his state” (p 43). Here, Machiavelli again portrays his view of human nature. He emphasizes that since it is impossible, due to human limitations, for one to have all the qualities which we think a ruler should have, one should simply focus on avoiding the bad qualities which will cause him to lose the support of the people. Both of these passages show that Machiavelli believes that most men are not good, and that even the best of man cannot have all the positive qualities which a good ruler should have. Thus, instead of spending time and energy on a quest to change human nature (a quest which does not have guaranteed success), Machiavelli suggest a more simple, direct, and pragmatic solution: A prince should not try to be good, instead he should be cruel when necessary in order to maintain authority, control and peace.
In Niccolo Machiavelli's book, The Prince (1513), he evaluates on how a prince can be a successful leader. Machiavelli’s purpose of this guidebook was to construct his argument to the rising ruler Giuliano de Medici for when he comes to power in Florence. He adopts a casual but authoritative tone in order to convince the prince that Machiavelli’s evaluation on how to be the best prince, is the right thing for the prince to do without coming off as he knows more than the prince or is trying to intimidate him.. Machiavelli’s reference to previous rulers and whether their tactics failed or succeeded helps to benefit his credibility along with his allusion to historic text. He appeals to our logic by simply stating a prince can only do what is within his power to control, and his use of an analogy furthers his argument. Throughout the chapter, Machiavelli uses authoritative language to help convince the reader and prince that his ideas are worthy of being followed.
He designed his own hypothesis of effective leadership and based his ideal leader on Borgia’s life. Machiavelli famously claimed that excellent leaders have to learn to be tough; they must be ready to set aside ethical or moral concerns of justice, kindness, and honesty in order to guarantee the stability of their regime. The assertion was outrageous to contemporaries, who upheld medieval concepts about divine power, in which a supreme being appointed the ruler for the sole purpose of serving people and upholding justice and law. In contrast, Machiavelli asserted that the most prosperous leaders were not those adhered to the dictates of justice, conscience or law, but those prepared to do whatever it take to preserve their own power. Such leaders, according to him, end up preserving the order of their
“Although one should not reason about Moses, as he was a mere executor of things that had been ordered for him by God, nonetheless he should be admired if only for that grace which made him so deserving of speaking with God” (22). In the context of The Prince, this statement proves to be duplicitous because Machiavelli claims that he will not reason about Moses, but then uses the following pages to do precisely that. Furthermore, Machiavelli draws extensively from the actions of Moses and the Old Testament God, although Machiavelli is often regarded as an antagonist of the Church. Machiavelli’s handbook for princes consists of concrete advice for rulers that directly reflect the more abstracted stories in Exodus. For instance, Machiavelli’s description of human nature in The Prince mirrors Moses’ experiences as the leader of the Israelites in Exodus.