A Report About Niccolo Machiavelli History Essay

A Report About Niccolo Machiavelli History Essay Niccolo Machiavelli was born in 1469 in Florence. Since 1484, Florence had a republican government after ruling Medici family and its supporters were driven from power. Machiavelli suffered from this regime change: first he was sent to an internal exile and later was imprisoned and tortured for several weeks when (wrongly) suspected of conspiring against the Medici family in 1513. Following which, he retired to his farm outside Florence. This drove him to turn to literary pursuits and he wrote his famous study on power, ‘The Prince’ in 1517. The Prince was primarily a guide book for his prince, Lorenzo De Medici, to help him promote himself into the political set up of Italy. Machiavelli analyzed power and the ways for Italy to gain it to become independent and keep control. The explanations in the book were driven by Machiavelli’s own attraction with power and his deep desire for an independent Italy. His ideas on the rules of power caters to the struggles for a ll levels of power, from a common man struggling in the world of business to strategies performed by the political leaders in the sixteenth century to now. ‘The Prince’ is primarily a study of power in which Machiavelli suggests how political power should be acquired, utilized, and maintained by the ruler. (Fischer, 2000), (Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/ ) Machiavelli always asserted the importance of acquisition of power, he thinks it comes naturally to all humans and the one who does acquire power should be praised and not blamed. Machiavelli’s Philosophy beyond Acquisition of Power: Machiavelli doesn’t just concentrated on acquisition of power, he said that the real concern of any ruler is the not just acquisition but also maintenance of power. On the basis of his past experiences with the Florentine government, he supports the view that being right and good human being is not sufficient to acquire and maintain political offi ce. He feels power typically defines political activity; therefore any ruler must know how it is used. Since only by proper application of power, can rulers make individuals obey them and will be able to enforce law to maintain peace in the state. â€Å"one can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit†¦. Love is a bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes† (Machiavelli 1965, 62; translation altered) Thus we see that Machiavelli believes that fear is always preferable to love while dealing with subjects, because laws are enforced on the basis of threat of coercive force, because people obey law due to the fear of results of not doing the same, whether the loss of life or other punishments. These are all Machiavelli’s views on how to maintain power not acquire it. His pragmat ic political ideas are based on two elements: The political environment in the world at that point in time was divided and commanded by powers with no possibility of unification. That time no political leader at that time who was using the kind of force Machiavelli thought was required for peace. He thought that a price feared by his subjects would ensure their loyalty. On human nature, Machiavelli thought humans are basically greedy and selfish and their actions are driven more by fear than by love. As a political philosopher, his attempt was to introduce a new way to create a society, which according to him was different from the one existing. Though his philosophy has been regarded as evil by many, but in practice most business leaders and politicians agree and follow it and regard it as the physics of power. The philosophy put forward in The Prince, is popularly known as Machiavellianism and is defined as: â€Å"The political doctrine of Machiavelli, which denies the rel evance of morality in political affairs and holds that craft and deceit are justified in pursuing and maintaining political power.† We can explain this with simple saying that as far as power is concerned, the end justifies the means. The core thought of Machiavelianism is that the purpose of the ruler (power holder) is to maintain peace and security of the state irrespective of the morality of the means.