Machiavelli on Leadership
This is an excerpt from the paper...
In delineating different requirements of leadership for different kinds of states, Niccolo Machiavelli, in The Prince, is concerned only with the maintenance of power, rather than with any ethical consideration. Whatever rationalization is made in defending Machiavelli's ideas, the fact remains that those ideas are rooted in the worship of power. Machiavelli, based on the ideas in this book, would have honored Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, and Stalin equally, because they were able to maintain power, though in different ways. Machiavellian ideas are at work in democracies as well as in tyrannies, for Machiavelli does not simply advocate brute force as the only or primary tool of the leader, but instead argues for persuasion---including the use of any necessary lies---if persuasion works. In any case, as Machiavelli notes, if the leaders "depend on their own energies and can make use of force, then they hardly ever come to grief" (17). His ideas can be used as intellectual justification not only for the brutality of tyrannies, but for much of the corruption and deception which are today so blatantly a part of the democratic process as well. As for the acquisition of power. Machiavelli advocates the swift ruthlessness later used by Hitler, Stalin and other brutal tyrants: "He should calculate the sum of all the injuries he will have to do, and do them all at once" (27). Again, whatever Machiavelli's practical aim in writing this book, with respect to restoring order to his o
. . .
The fact that he is writing to Roman leaders in praise of their government and leadership does not discount the fact that he is grants more power and wisdom to the people than he would later even consider in The Prince, a work in which he has nothing but pure contempt for the people. It also does not seem believable that he had simply changed his mind about the people by the time he wrote The Prince. It seems more likely that Machiavelli simply disguised his true feelings and later exposed them when he felt safe. Can we believe that a man who espouses the view that "The voice of the people is the voice of God" (109) and sees them in a later work as nothing more than obstacles to the prince's exercise of power.
Later in the Discourses, Machiavelli begins to show the cynical contempt for humanity which will burst force in The Prince. In that passage, he writes that "cunning and deceit will serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune" (112). This liking for cunning and deceit is what would mark Machiavelli's later work, The Prince.
J.R. Hale, in assessing The Prince, sees it as the result of a natural evolution in Machiavelli's thinking from the time of the Discourses. Still, Hale recognizes impor
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Hitler Stalin, Livius Machiavelli, Nietzsche Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini's, Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli Discourses, Roosevelt Stalin, Hale Machiavelli's, Sheldon Wolin, Genealogy Morals, prince superman, moral standards, imitate noble actions, negative aspects, leader machiavelli, imitate noble, prince machiavelli, human behavior, power machiavelli, successful prince, power discourses,
Approximate Word count = 2172
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Machiavelli on Leadership
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
