The Prince 2
The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince examines the nature of power and his views of power are still somewhat in existence today. Machiavelli discusses two distinct groups of people, the political elite, including nobles and other princes, and the general public. Today in the United States, the first group, the political elite, includes political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders and the leaders of strong lobbying groups. The composition of the general public has changed little from Machiavelli's time. I'll discuss this in this essay, emphasizing the following theses. Machiavelli discusses power over the people, dictatorial power, and power with people, shared power. While it is possible for power with to attain greater prevalence in society, it will not completely eliminate power over. Machiavelli concentrates on relations between the prince and the political elite. He claims that ambition and dictatorial power drive most nobles and princes. A prince must act with dictatorial power in order to maintain his position. Machiavelli assumes that shared power will not be effective with nobles, since "whether men bear affection depends on themselves, but whether they are afraid will depend on what the ruler does"
Finally Machiavelli notes that inherent power of the public, which exists despite the dictatorial power that any prince exercises. When discussing fortresses, he states that "the best fortress a ruler can have is not to be hated by the people, for if you possess fortresses and the people hate you, having fortresses will not save you" (p.75). Machiavelli does not disregard shared power as a potentially successful way to govern, but only notes that dictatorial power can not be used exclusively in governing.Even in relations with the general public, which can include shared power, the prince can not act in ways that might be considered virtuous for the general citizen. People expect leaders to act differently than themselves. Machiavelli notes that people are interested in appearances and results. A leader must seem resolute and moral to the people, and show positive results from his leadership. The most important thing for a leader to do is to avoid being hated or despised by the public, which could occur if a prince took people's property. For the public, more than the form of power, their perception of power may be the most important for a leader to maintain his position.As an example from today, President Clinton's unpopularity can be examined using Machiavelli's ideas of appearances and results. In terms of appearances, Clinton is seen as irresolute, and as a man with numerous character flaws. His oftentimes messy and disorganized decision-making process has been widely publicized, further eroding any appearance of strong decisive leaders
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Approximate Word count = 1044
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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