THE PRINCE

Machiavelli's “The Prince”

Machiavelli's “The Prince”

Machiavelli's “the Prince” is one who must learn from experience. His conclusion is that ruling is more like an art than like a science. What is somewhat modern is the realistic emphasis on tailoring political advice to the realization of national ends whose moral value is not judged. “the Prince” is a fascinating if sometimes shocking justification of the view that moral rules are not binding in the activities of political rulers. Machiavelli wrote “the Prince” within two years after he was driven from office. A surviving letter indicates that the first title for it was “On Principalities.” The work was not published until 1532.

Machiavelli's talents were so varied that it is difficult to classify him. Public servant, diplomat, poet, playwright, satirist, historian, he is best known as a political theorist. Yet his most celebrated work, Il principe (The Prince), does not fit easily into the category of political theory. It belongs rather to the literature of parliamentary practice. “the Prince” is based, the author claims, on long experience of modern affairs and a continual study of the past. In this sense, it differs from earlier works on government, which describe ideal republics and principalities. Machiavelli intends to show how things truly are. (Harvey, 1998)

In this concise book, Machiavelli undertakes to treat politics scientifically, judging people by an estimate of how they do behave as political animals rather than by ideal standards concerned with how they ought to act. The hard-headedly consistent refusal of the author to submit political behaviour to psychological tests has earned the named “Machiavellian” for amoral instances of power relations among nation-states and other organized groups. The power divisions of Machiavelli's Italy is now seen to have been prophetic of the massive national rivalries that followed in the Western world. The problems encountered by Renaissance princes endured long after the princes themselves fell before more formidable enemies. Machiavelli understood how success is always a minimal condition of political greatness. In The Prince, he presents a manual of advice on the winning and retention of power in a world containing extensive political factionalism and lust for dominion. (Lord, 2003)

Critics who are clearly aware of the amoral aspects of Machiavelli's legislative recommendations periodically attempt to gain him a sympathetic hearing in distant quarters. They do so by placing “the Prince” in its limited historical setting and relating its contents to ...