After reading the background on Machiavelli and then reading the excerpts from The Prince,

post a discussion response before your mentor session on 1/20. Your post on Machiavelli should
be 350-450 words and should respond to one of the following two prompts:
As the Stanford Encyclopedia points out, Machiavelli rejects the moralistic view
of authority, of the political advisers and philosophers who came before him. He offers
an alternative to the dominant notion of the time that the best way to stay in power was to
behave in accordance with conventional standards of ethical goodness. What is your
personal reaction to Machiavellis realism (his rejection of the kind of idealism that we
see in Platos vision of ideal leaders in his Allegory of the Cave) and his view of human
nature? Do Machiavellis ideas about the necessary ruthlessness of leaders seem accurate
to you? Why or why not?
1.

2. Machiavellis famous book about how a leader might succeed and stay in power is
clearly a product of his specific historical environment in a society that went from being
under the control of the Medici family to becoming a successful republic, and then went
back to the rule of the Medicis. As we learned from the Stanford Encyclopedia, The
Prince was composed in great haste by an author who was, among other things, seeking
to regain his status in the Florentine government. Machiavelli wrote for an empowered
potential patron whose right to his position was contested, so presumably his focus was
on presenting reassuring instruction on how a prince might best stay in power. But could
this book inform the political careers of politicians in todays western democracies? How
do the conditions of Machiavellis prince differ from those of a democratically elected
president like our own? Choose a section of The Prince on which to focus (e.g. Constant
Readiness for War, Cruelty and Clemency, etc.) and discuss how that section helps us
to discern differences and similarities. Could a ruler maintain power with the tactics and
psychology presented by Machiavelli regardless of the type of system under which he
governs?

In response to Machiavellis The Prince

I think that in a lot of ways people in power in todays western civilization practice many of the
ideas that Machiavelli outlines in his work. At least in the United States, our government officials only
make decisions, and take actions that will give them the best chance of being re-elected, so that they may
stay in power. I think that politicians also realize that there is no way that they will be universally loved,
and so they take actions that play into Machiavellis idea of doing actions that will give you a reputation

that is the lesser of the two evils. He discusses this idea using the idea of being a miser instead of using
his own resources because that would give him an even worse reputation with his people.
I think that one of the main differences in the conditions of Machiavellis time and the modern
day was the state of the republic system of government. As it stands today, the republic has developed so
much and changed immensely with the times. The terms today for leaders are so much shorter, elections
more frequent, and there are much more government official positions. The structure of the modern
republic has a lot more limits on absolute rule than Im sure the early Italian republic did and so a lot of
Machiavellis ideas are hard to practice to the fullest extent.
I think that one interesting thing that Machiavelli discusses in his Liberality and Niggardliness
section is the idea of rulers spending their own wealth. He seems to look down upon it, and feels the need
to draw all resources from the people. But money is something that is so crucial in todays campaigns.
The politicians that win elections nowadays, are the ones that spend the most money, and while some of
that is money they raise, a lot of it is from their own funds. But in the same way, rulers must depend on
their citizens money to be able to run their government and country.
I think that a lot of Machiavellis ideas are ones that are pretty widespread in the world today, regardless
of what type of government people belong to. I think a lot of his tactics must be bent and applied to the
world and its workings today, but I do think that they are concepts that are very much relevant in modern
politics.