Machiavelli thought that the most important thing was your army. As he said "A prince must lay strong foundations otherwise he is bound to come to grief". Which in my opinion, he means that your foundation needs to be the central part of your economy, such as your army. Without your army built strong you won't go very far. If your armry isn't strong it will cause your people a lot of pain, worrying, and grief. Machiavelli doesn't agree with hiring mercenaries. His reason for this is that the mercenaries have no other passions of incentives to hold the field, except there desire for a little money and even that is not enough to make them die for you. I think that is a very valid point. You either have som

Machiavelli goes through the principals of being a good ruler. The most important one is to be feared. The goal is not to be hated but feared. You can still be feared and not bestow hatred into your people. In Machiavelli's opinion it is better to be feared than loved. While you serve their welfare, they are all yours, but when danger is close at hand, they turn against you. Which I think is very true. While your doing everything possible for them and making great things they love you, but when something goes wrong, like in Bill Clintons case with all the controversy around him , people started to hate him. People are less concerned with offending a man that makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared. The reason for that is love is a link of obligation which men which doing so serves there advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape. Machiavelli says that a great prince would instill fear into his servants or citizens. A man can do this without causing

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Approximate Word count = 685
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)