The Prince by Machiavelli Analysis Essay Example

📌Category: Philosophers, Philosophy
📌Words: 809
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 17 April 2022

The Prince by Machiavelli was published in 1532, it’s an instructional guide for royals and an expression of nationalism and patriotism. The Prince is the first modern conceptualization of political power in terms of praxis rather than the divine right of a ruler. What it offers is a secular understanding of political power as human conduct. Italy during this time was divided into city-states and Machiavelli saw this as a major problem. Through his eyes, this division made Italians weak since during this time in places like France and Spain there were emergences of the first nation-states. What Machievali conveys through his book was that the church must not be nor have a say in political matters. Machiavelli further expressed hatred of the aristocracy and proposed the idea of an absolute royal as a solution. The idea is that the need for society to be orderly further pushes the notion of the need for a prince in absolute power. 

Machiavelli begins by establishing the varying states and their coinciding principalities, He recurrently claims in certain circumstances that it’s harder to be an absolute prince in new monarchies than a hereditary government to which they are already ingrained within the customs and the people. He states if you take over a place that was a republic or democracy you need to deal with people used to freedom, It will take time and effort to make them forget therefore the hate and revenge would be rampant. Machiavelli proposes several ways to keep control of the new monarchy, one solution proposed is moving residence there or mass genocide of all residents. Machiavelli references that princes must never hesitate to eliminate people who stand in their way or cause disorder. At the same time, they should achieve the love and fear of the people. The more people they need for them to come to power, the weaker they will become. He states that the easiest way to get influence in the region is to invite all the influential citizens in the city to a meeting or festival, and then you ambush and kill them. 

Machiavelli did not show any sort of allegiance to any constitution, statute or way of thought. Instead, he suggests that you should be as long as you can obtain strength. He does not recognize any sort of morals or internal values. He feels that politics means still seeking ways to maintain influence. All this thought emerges from his point of view of what constitutes a human being. He believes that the human core is unchangeable. He claims that humans are, by nature, selfish, aggressive, greedy, hungry for power, safety-seeking, and protection seeking. He states that if we accept this as truth we need also to think of a way to handle these people. Here is where the Prince comes up and he should be an absolute dictator. To get away from the chaos we need to focus all the power on one leader-- he continues. He has double standards for how the prince and the people should behave. Since there are no rules for politics and the goal is power, that is okay to him. For Machiavelli, there are no rights to a human unless the state (absolute ruler) decides so. Machiavelli exclaims that the prince should also be unscrupulous in his relations with other countries since the world is in a constant battle for power between nations. The ruler creates morals on its own by deciding what is right and what is wrong.  A good ruler is one that makes people think the way he does. So when a ruler constructs morality and that morality gets adopted by the people, he will be guaranteed longevity of power.  A prince that is hated by the population has to defend himself constantly. It is better to rule through people’s minds than to need to use the police and military all the time. Politics for him is a strategy game. The want of love over fear is weak in Machiavelli’s mind. Never should an absolute ruler want or strive for the love of their “nation” instead they need to rule with an iron fist, to convey who is in power.

“The Art of War” One of the most restated things by Machiavelli is the notion that all great monarchies must have great arms and military. Machiavelli states that war is a necessary means of instilling and keeping a successfully run monarchy. Without the art of war and creating fear around the nation, it will get right out from under the feet of the monarchist. Machiavelli emphasizes that by leading the militia and leading it well you are gaining the trust and loyalty of the militia and high power-holding people. Machiavelli made it very clear that gaining the loyalty of your state would determine either if you will succeed or fail.

Machiavelli put all of his thoughts into “The Prince '' this is a guide that should be used by royals or people in power to maintain their wealth, loyalty, and power. This book has now been used by many including Elizabeth I and Thomas Cromwell as a reference to their rule. As well as now there is a mode of epistemological thinking influenced by Machiavelli, Machiavellianism.

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