Machiavelli's Concept of New Prince

Machiavelli introduces the concept of the ônew princeö in Chapters V through IX of The Prince (pp. 19-39). By a new prince he means a man who has become an autocratic ruler, or monarch, of a state that had previously had some other, unrelated ruler or some other form of government. In these chapters, he discusses the various paths by which a man could become a new prince: oneÆs own abilities, that is, military conquest; fortune, that is, appointment by a new conqueror; treachery, that is, by a coup dÆetat; and election, either by the few rich and powerful or by the general populace.

The first three of these methods most Americans would now probably consider simply illegal, except after a war. For example, the Allies were in the position of being a new Prince after the conquest of Germany in 1945. The fourth method most Americans would consider to be normal party politics, with the Republicans being supposedly the party of the rich and powerful and the Democrats the party of the general public.

Machiavelli groups these paths in terms of whether they depend more on a personÆs own abilities or more on fortune or luck. The biggest difference between these groupi

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ree ways to do this (p. 18). The first is to despoil them, that is, to destroy them and kill or deport their populations. This is what the Romans did to Carthage at the end of the third Punic War. The problem with this tactic, of course, is that conquering a city only to destroy it is usually a waste of oneÆs resources, unless it is considered to be so irredeemably an enemy that such destruction is the only way to end the warfare; so the Romans regarded Carthage. But normally one would conquer a territory in order to gain some sort of political or economic advantage, and that would require that it be maintained as a functioning state of some sort. The second is for the conqueror to go live there in person and set up his own new government. The third is to allow the citizens of the state to live under their own laws as far as possible, but under a government that is controlled by the foreign prince and that will keep the state loyal to him. Both of these contingencies merit further expansion. If the New Prince is setting up a new government in a newly conquered territory where he himself will live, then, Machiavelli says, he must take care to dismantle all previous structures that were sources of political power and to replac
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1614
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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