Machiavelli's 'The Prince': Summary & Analysis

hello and welcome to this summary of the prince by nicolo machiavelli when nicolo machiavelli wrote the prince in 1513 he was seeking to address two main issues first was the simple fact that he wanted a job he'd been a senior figure in the florentine republic but had been sidelined after the return of the medici family in 1512. writing the prince for the new ruler of florence giuliano de medici was his way of saying that he could still play a role in public life the second was that he wanted someone to bring greater stability to italy during machiavelli's lifetime places such as venice rome florence naples and milan were independent and often came into conflict with one another what's more powerful neighboring states such as france and spain were not averse to sending troops to italy to advance their own interests so what was required was a prince who might unite italy and repulse foreign influence effectively and that man suggests machiavelli could be giuliano de medici if he pays attention to the guidelines set out in the prince now against this background the 26 chapters of the prince can be divided into two the first half chapters 1 to 14 deal with the types of principalities that a new prince might find himself in charge of the specific challenges he might face in retaining power and how he might organize his troops what is most interesting about these chapters he's not the bulk of the advice which is fairly conventional but the remarks he makes in chapters 7 and 8. in chapter 7 he says there are no better precepts or general rules to offer a prince than the ones taken from the example of cesare borgia a powerful mercenary soldier operating in italy at this time in particular he notes that cesare sent a cruel efficient man rumira de orco to restore order in the romania area now once this was achieved cesare then had ramiro murdered and his body cut into pieces and left in the main piazza along with a bloody knife now this achieved two things first it had shifted the blame for the cruel way the people had been treated onto ramiro second the savagery of his death announced that cesare was not a man to challenge thus the people of the romania were brought under control but cesare wasn't hated by them now what's surprising about these rules is that they break the conventional moral virtues such as kindness and compassion and they endorse violence and murder as valid methods of achieving political ends then in chapter 8 he develops this point by saying that whilst violence has a role continual violence and murder although they can help achieve power do not bring glory in fact he says cruelty is only really useful if it's used once at the beginning of a prince's rule and not afterwards now in this way the people will forget the initial cruelty and won't hate the prince however whilst the advice in chapters seven and eight is somewhat unconventional it's what machiavelli recommends in the second half of the prince that has given the book its lasting resonance relevance and notoriety chapter 15 begins by saying that the remaining part of the book will look at the way a prince must regulate his conduct towards his subject and allies so first thing here note that we're not talking about his enemies we're talking about his friends and allies and citizens and the first thing he does is to make clear that he's going to talk about life as it really is not as we might want it to be so in plain english he's saying that whilst there have been other books of advice they're worthless because they're not based on what really happens in life now this is an important point because he argues that there is a gulf between how one should live and how one does live and if a prince fails to understand that this gulf or large gap exists he will fail to rule successfully if hattie goes on the fact is a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous so the problem as machiavelli sees it is that humans are in general not virtuous and that in this situation ironically what have been seen as virtues in the past now become vices and vice versa he then spends some time giving some examples and he begins by asking this question which is better generosity or miserliness now we might think that generosity is a good thing but machiavelli says that if a prince develops a reputation for generosity he will come to grief the reason is if his generosity is good and sincere then he tends to be generous in a way that's not noticed and this won't give him a reputation for generosity an alternative is to be seen to be generous but then he must be ostentatiously lavish which means spending a lot of money now sadly the people who benefit from this extravagance are often the very few eventually the money runs out and the prince is forced to impose extortionate taxes on the citizens in order to balance the books now this will then make the citizens hate the prince and since he's now impoverished he'll also be despised so as a result machiavelli concludes that the prince should not be generous and should instead be mean with his money now this will lead to him being called a miser from time to time but ironically he will be recognized as being generous ultimately because he saved money and does not have to tax the citizens now in chapter 17 he asks another question is it better to be cruel or compassionate now here he repeats the example of cesare borgia who used cruel methods including murder to bring the romania under control again traditionally this would be frowned upon but he argues that this cruelty was actually more compassionate than not intervening and allowing disorder to continue and inflict greater harm on the people so by intervening and being cruel he was actually being kind he then poses a third question is it better to be loved than feared or the reverse here machiavelli again turns traditional moral attitudes on their head ideally a prince would like to be loved but he says it's difficult to be both loved and feared so it's far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both but how does he reach this conclusion it's based on a very particular reading of human nature which is that people are ungrateful fickle liars and deceivers they shun danger and are greedy for profit in this context men will support a prince while there's no danger but desert him when danger approaches what's more he says men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared and he says this because fear can always be strengthened by the dread of punishment it's difficult to make people love you and remember again that this is being said in the context of maintaining order in the states and the only sure way of controlling others he argues is through fear now this is not to say that a prince needs to go around terrifying his people in fact whilst he must be feared he must avoid being hated which in turn poses the question how does a prince avoid being hated machiavelli has a surprising answer don't steal the property belonging to your citizens in fact he goes on to say that people value their property more than their family he says men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony patrimony here means the property inherited from the father so the point reinforces machiavelli's assertion that people are self-centered and they can't be trusted chapter 18 then discusses another traditional virtue keeping one's word and argues that whilst it's a good thing in general princes who have given their word lightly are actually the ones who've achieved great things now of course given their word lightly is actually a euphemism what it really means he's not keeping promises but again let's follow his line of reasoning to work out why he thinks it's okay to break a promise he begins in a strange place he says that a prince can fight in two ways by law or by force the first way by law is natural to men whilst force is natural to beasts now this would suggest a prince should use the law but machiavelli points out that the law is sometimes inadequate if a prince comes under attack people don't follow the law so in these circumstances he must also be prepared to act like a beast and he must learn from two beasts in particular the fox and the lion he learns from the fox because it uses intelligence to survive and he he learns from the lion because it uses courage and fights off opponents and the sensible prince needs to be able to use both of these animal qualities if he's to succeed as machiavelli puts it one must be a fox in order to recognize traps and a lion to frighten off wolves those who simply act like lions are stupid of course says machiavelli if men were all good then there would be no need for a prince to act like a fox and he and to tell lies but unfortunately as we've heard he thinks men are not good in fact they're wretched creatures who wouldn't keep their word to a prince as a result a wise prince won't keep his word either and he then goes even further one must know how to colour one's actions and to be a great liar and deceiver in addition he says a prince should not deviate from what is good if that is possible but he should know how to do evil if that is necessary none of this means however that the people should believe that the prince is lying in fact he should appear to be a man of compassion a man of good faith a man of integrity a kind and religious man but how will citizens be taken in by this work they suspect that their prince is a liar not in machiavelli's opinion because people judge by their eyes rather than by their hands and because everyone sees what you appear to be but few experience what you really are so it is possible to show them an honest face whilst in fact lying and as he goes on to say the common people are always impressed by appearances and results again we see his advice here based upon a particular reading of human nature for if people were good and trustworthy a prince would have no need for such underhand tactics in chapter 19 machiavelli then draws our attention to a key point despite saying that a prince can lie not keep his word make people fearful be miserly and even commit murder there are two things the princes must avoid and that is inspiring contempt and being hated a prince will be hated as we've heard if he steals the property or women of other men he will be despised if he's fickle frivolous effeminate cowardly or irresolute now what these observations indicate is that prince has to have a clear approach to resolving issues fairly between those ruled by him now these might include up to three groups the noblemen the populous or common citizens and possibly the soldiers if a prince has a standing army this is not easy but again he comes back to the key qualities of a fox and a lion a leader needs to know how to appear compassionate and to have integrity but must still be able to inspire fear in all of these groups and if you can do that then he will be respected by all in chapter 23 he then addresses a common problem for leaders why flatters must be ignored and how to gather good advice without undermining one's authority machiavelli argues that flatterers can be sidelined when a leader demonstrates that he's prepared to hear the truth flatterers are of course good at telling leaders they're right the whole time but how does a leader get to hear the truth without everyone weighing in with their opinions so that it undermines the prince's authority the answer he says is to surround oneself with wise men allowing only those the freedom to speak the truth to him and then only concerning matters on which he asks their opinions what's more once he has sought advice he should act on the matter immediately and stick to his decision otherwise this undermines faith in his judgment and he will be despised and as we have already heard a prince should always avoid being despised because that indicates he's weak now there are two further related points that are particularly worth noting in the prince the first is the idea of preparation or lack of it machiavelli warns his reader that a common failing of mankind is never to anticipate a storm when the sea is calm what he means is that when things are going well most people think that will continue forever but the sensible prince makes plans for downturns when things are going well and this will give him the best chance of survival but even then there is one further complication events that are totally unexpected and so cannot be foreseen or planned for he characterizes such changes as being brought on by fortune a female goddess who typically raises people up and then knocks them back down again he says that this makes some people believe that events are controlled by fortune and by god in such a way that men have no influence whatsoever machiavelli completely rejects such fatalism and asserts that to abandon our fate to outside forces is to deny our free will there is a compromise and he believes that it's probably true that fortune is the arbiter of half the things we do leaving the other half or so to be controlled by ourselves arbiter here means to have ultimate authority over something the interesting point he then makes is that no single type of man can succeed in every circumstance sometimes a circumspect or careful man will be best suited and at other times an impetuous or daring man will be better but on balance machiavelli thinks that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her in addition he suggests that the ideal prince should be young because women are impressed by their daring now this personification is clearly sexist and misogynistic but the underlying point is that when dealing with unpredictable events the impetuous and bold character has a greater chance of success because he tries to impose himself on events rather than passively accepting them this then is the essence of machiavelli's book it is conventional in the sense that it offers advice to rulers it is unconventional and revolutionary in that it suggested that advice he's giving is based on how the world actually is not on how we would like it to be it's a reading of human nature that paints people as wretched liars and easily led and he advocates lying and murdering whilst appearing to be compassionate kind and generous it helped to give birth to the term machiavellian meaning cunning scheming and unscrupulous but the fact that its teachings still have resonance today is a testament to its lasting influence on political and moral life and perhaps gets us to ask the question is there some truth to what machiavelli says about humanity give a thumbs up if you enjoyed this video and subscribe now so that you never miss any of my future posts you

Channel: Dr Aidan

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Keywords: dr aidan, niccolo machiavelli, the prince, leadership, morality, school of life, ethics, leaders, president, be feared, eudaimonia, machiavelli advice nice guys, be bad, renaissance, philosophy, medici, book explanation, summary, politics, florence, italy, republic, radical, revolution, new world order, democracy, autocracy, what you need to know, key quotes, big ideas made simple, machiavelli, machiavellian, political philosophy

Id: EwWg2MDvHDI

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 20 2022