Machiavellis The Prince: Examples of Machiavellian Leaders
Another literal example is his fathers office, also referred to as Out of Bounds At All Times and No Exceptions. By the way, capitalization is shown, Bruno must have this said to him by one of his family members often. Another type of boundary is a figurative boundary, which, unlike a literal boundary, it isnt physically there. The first reason he suggests that a leader should seek the support of the people rather than favouring his great allies or partisans is that the ambitious great regard themselves as his equals, and therefore wish to displace him. They will demand ever more offices and goods as the price of their continued support. Attempts to satisfy them will necessarily fail and, in failing, add to the leaders enemies. A leader can satisfy his people, however, because the end of the people is more decent (onesto) than that of the great, since the great want to oppress and the people want not to be oppressed. The Prince has had a negative influence because of his teachings and beliefs, past Machiavellianism, and modern Machiavellianism. The fact that Machiavelli has had a negative influence on history and society matters to everyone. Through the Prince, Machiavelli has influenced and promoted many of the horrific actions that have been taken by many oppressive and evil rulers throughout history. Although, evil leaders have existed well before the publication of the Prince, Machiavelli does not condemn them, but instead he advocates them. He then make it worst by making it easy for any one to follow.
The Way a Prince Should Act According to Niccolo Machiavelli Niccolo Machiavelli was a bright political philosopher who questioned how power could be controlled within What Machiavelli does not mention in The Prince, but what he states explicitly in his Discourses, is that a young virtuous political leader at the head of a citizen army, who seeks and acquires popular support the way Machiavelli argues that a prince should, constitutes the greatest threat to the preservation of a republic. Ordinary people do not perceive the seeds of tyranny that are concealed by the favours that a popular leader does for them. Happy to see such a popular leader put down the great who have lorded over them in the past, the people are often willing to see a leader (such as Venezuelas former president Hugo Chávez, say) abolish the constitutional checks or restraints that prevent any single individual from becoming a tyrant. So, whereas in The Prince Machiavelli advocates a kind of alliance between the prince and the people to keep the great in check, in the Discourses he seeks to create a kind of alliance between the other great men and the people against any emerging prince or tyrant.
Machiavelli the prince essay - Second and more fundamental, there is strength in numbers: the people are much more numerous than the great. Machiavelli likes to use shocking examples and language. He points to the historical example of Borgia as well as to Oliverotto Euffreducci, the ruthless ruler of Fermo, and Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, to show that the relatively few great in any particular polity can be assembled under false pretences and slaughtered, but reminds his readers that a prince will have no one to rule if he murders most of his people. A political leader will need subordinates to help him rule, but he can do perfectly well without any given set of great persons, since he can make and unmake them every day. He can make some great by giving them lands and offices, or unmake them by taking these, and their lives, away. Machiavelli thus indicates that the great are not different from the many by nature human nature is the same in all. Because those granted high offices have more power and goods, they no longer feel as liable to oppression as the people merely subject to the government. Rather than desiring merely not to be oppressed, as a result of their relative positions the great come to desire to acquire more by oppressing others.
Machiavelli argues that political leaders have to use both force and fraud in order to acquire and maintain power. But he warns that they must always strive to appear to be full of mercy, faith, honesty, humility and religion especially religion even if they cannot be so in fact. (Anyone accused of being a Machiavellian prince has not, therefore, succeeded in becoming such.) Why will everyone not merely believe but praise a head of state when he claims to be waging war, rigorously enforcing the law, or raising taxes for the sake of the true faith or humanity? If a political leader does what is necessary to win and maintain a state, Machiavelli assures his readers, the means will always be judged honourable, and will be praised by everyone. Machiavelli's political treatise The Prince is an often brutal and brutally honest reflection of the political realities in which Machiavelli lived. He applies a rather Borgia was exiled by the man he helped to make pope, and Severus was unable to teach his son how to perpetuate his familys rule. As Machiavelli observes, leaders tend to persist in using the means that have enabled them to succeed in the past, even when those means are no longer suited to the circumstances. The impetuous continue to forge ahead even when caution is warranted, and the cautious do not seize the opportunities that arise. In teaching his readers to be able not to be good and to use or not use that knowledge according to necessity, Machiavelli thus appears to be addressing two sorts of political actors: the good, who do not know how to be bad, but need to learn to be able to do so in order to be effective; and the bad, who do not know how to use (or not use) their ability to establish a lasting regime.