The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

            So this is the book that gave Machiavelli his bad name, so of course I had to read it. I can see why most people would speak out against the ideals put forth in this book, but that is only because people are afraid of the truth. The fact of the matter is that some of the practices he champions in this book are commonplace today, even in our fair republic.

            Machiavelli starts out dedicating the book to Medici, the guy in charge of Florence at the time, so right away he is not only sucking up but also letting people know that he wants them to pay attention to his ideas in a practical way, not just as a philosophy of sorts.  The first two chapters slowly pass by, with him explaining what he is going to explain so as no one could misunderstand him. It was like his thesis statement, but he took two chapters instead of a long paragraph. Luckily, chapter three is where it starts to get good.

            In chapter three he starts to talk about how you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do in order to get things done. He hints at further details to come, but he basically spells out his philosophy in this chapter, and let me tell you, he’s an ends justify the means kind of guy. After chapter three he calms down and gets to the details of the stuff he introduced before, and talks about how to rule when you don’t know your people, like if you annex a country or invade and take it over. He talks about the political aftermath of using military force on your own people to put down opposition, as well as a few stray comments on how people in large groups are just a bunch of sheep anyway. He goes off on quite a few tangents, but usually brings it back into the main topic. After he gets through all of these situations he really starts to get in detail on the attitudes that a ruler should have, and this is where he gets his bad name. He praises virtue, and pretty much says that a ruler should protect his people so that they can have virtue, but never bother with it himself. He spells out in read between the lines words that a ruler has to act like he has virtue, but never fool himself into believing that he does, because then he would start acting virtuous, and this is the first sign of a weak leader. He says the best way for a ruler to stay in power is to keep the people happy, and that politics was a tightrope walk in between keeping the people happy and doing what you want to and what you have to.

            In custodial work there is a saying, “make it look clean, then clean it.” Basically this means that the most important thing is not whether or not whatever you are cleaning is actually clean, as long as everyone thinks it is you’re ok. Machiavelli is a champion of this reasoning, except he applies it to ruling rather than custodial work. He advocates the appearance of honesty coupled with the practice of dishonesty. The magician’s best friend is misdirection, and so is the politician’s. Get the people to focus on something that they want and then give it to them, and while they are praising you do what you have to do to stay in power, whether that means silencing opponents within your borders or without. Throughout the book he remains confident that history will judge him favorably because he does what has to be done to keep everyone happy and stay in power, but boy was he wrong, History judged him as one of the most manipulative, soulless, mean-spirited and vicious people of all time, and his name has become a synonym for manipulation. I think he’s the scapegoat. Everybody knows that when it comes down to it its easier to stick to your principles than do what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals, and people who believe otherwise are called wrong. He was just saying what every politician both before and after him were thinking, and because of it they condemn him while practicing his version of the appearance of virtue.

            At the end of the book he ties it back into what he would call present day, once again praising Medici by saying he is the only one who could unify Italy, and the world is a better place for having him as a leader. I don’t see how Medici could believe any of this after reading what came before, and if he subscribed to Machiavelli’s teachings then he would have seen this as meaningless words and an attempt by Machiavelli to gain favor with him. Even with that in mind, if you are going to read one political book ever, this should be it. His policies of appearance versus genuine virtue are widely criticized but well practiced, not only in the political arena but in every facet of life. The people who practice this sort of thing are the ones who get ahead.