About the Prince by Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli was born in the country now known as Italy, by the time it was Florence as its own independent nation. On May 3, 1469 and had an amazing childhood that any children could ever ask for. He was educated at a very nice school and grow up in the middle-class family. While growing up, he spent two years studying business mathematics; he was fortunate enough to work approximately eight years in Rome for a Florentine banker. After returning to Florence in 1494. When he came back to Florence, there was a massive conflict that overthrown the ruling family who has been ruling Florence for decades. The current ruler was religious based ruler.

During the 1500s Machiavelli got married to Marietta di Lodovico Corsini, after getting married and lived together, they built a family and were fortunate to have six children. Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a book that the people in power will have to follow if they want to maintain their power. By the time when he wrote the prince it was not published and never got to be ready by many people because it did get a lot of criticism by some scholars and people actively involved with politics by the time; they argued against it saying that his intention for writing this book was not to help guide how to rule but instead how to not rule.

In chapter one he talked about the types of government and how they are established. He specifically mentioned republics and monarchies as the types of government that were alive this time. While he was specifically writing this volume to the new prince, I still don't know why he included the part of chapter one, because based on my interpretation, If I was the new prince or the ruler I would feel like, the whole chapter one was written to tell me that I am newly monarchy that I got my authority through power and that would make me feel threatened by the Machiavelli and I would not even try to bring him through my government, because soon or later he could be the one betraying the ruler.
In the second chapter, since he had lived in mostly monarchy society and he was dealing with the monarchy and not republic he did not talk about it because he had no reason to mention republic since the ruler was not under republic, but monarchy and his intention really was to maintain the monarchy. Machiavelli believed that hereditary monarchy was way easier to maintain because who gets to rule in the hereditary monarchy are those who are in the nuclear family and sometimes to extended families but extended families only for reasonable circumstances. The newly established monarchy was not as easy to maintain.

It's very reasonable to say that Machiavelli was right because the newly established monarchy always has the opponents, who are trying to get the monarchy out of power. And the opponents might be several people who are on different groups or those who have a different political party. This type of monarchy is similar to the U.S. political party system, where the Democratic party and the republican party do switch the presidency back and forth and the party that doesn't win the presidency is the party that is always criticizing the other party deeply. Hereditary monarchy is like the ruler who is ruling under the divine right, because when is the hereditary monarchy not a lot of people question the legitimacy of the ruling family and so is the divine right, the ruler always claim that his/her ruling power came from God.

That response minimizes the number of people who question and to try to go against them ruler because he/she (the ruler) uses God to maintain the power. And even if he be thus deprived, on the slightest mischance happening to the new occupier, he will be able to regain it (Machia, 05). Machiavelli strongly believed that those monarchies that are heredity when they lose their ruling power are more likely to regain back again. This is how Machiavelli differentiate the newly established monarchy and the ones that are heredity.

The following chapter Machiavelli describes how maintaining a new monarchy is more exhausting than maintaining a hereditary monarchy. When there are a monarchy people are willing to change than monarchy to a recent one or the opponent, hoping that a new ruler will be better than the present one. This mentality of hoping a better state will always make people act against the prince or any monarchy that is not providing what people are asking at that time. For instance, France before the revolution and after the revolution, most of the conflicts and even revolution the people reacted against the government in place, but they never get what they wanted but they always go with the next alternative, that they think might lead them to prosperity. When the revolution took place, Napoleon was highly preferred by the French people because, he represented the French working class, but the soon he assumed power he was seemed worse than the monarchy that was previously there. Machiavelli in this chapter was trying to explain that no matter how much people might know that their decision is wrong they will always disorder the ruler.

In this case, the prince might find himself in a position of fearing the people that have put him in power that they might acts against him again. This fear appears when the prince reaches to the point of seeing that he cannot maintain the support of these people because not being able to meet their expectations that their situation will better than the how the previous prince kept them. In this case, Machiavelli is telling the new prince that, people will take revenge if he is not strong enough to make them fear of him.

Machiavelli demonstrates two ways to keep the state without conflict. The first which he mentioned, was through the appointment of the ministers, where those ministers will be governing but all the loyalty still remains to the prince, who appoint those ministers. And the second one that Machiavelli mentioned was the nobles. These nobles are not appointed by the prince, but they all still obey the rules of the prince and they take him as the ruler of the entire country. Although that this might sounds off track, but I found these ideas are similar to the American system of a three branch of government. It made me wonder while drafting the constitution of the United States if the founding fathers of the United States followed Machiavelli's way of setting up a lasting government. The reason why I said that is very similar is because, the idea of the president nominating the supreme court justices, and the people who serve in Congress to be elected by the people and the President to be elected by the electoral college, this is very similar to what Machiavelli is using an example of why the Kingdom of Darius, occupied by Alexander did not act against the successors after his death.

Machiavelli explains some of the ways to hold to rule in the state that has been used to live in freedom using their own set of laws. The first thing he mentioned is to destroy those people. The second thing is to make sure that prince who takes full control and then after that the prince should make sure that the state keeps its own laws but to charge taxes and establish an oligarchy to keep the state in a friendly way. Machiavelli strongly believed that destruction is the only way to secure a state that has previously enjoyed the lifestyle of freedom and liberty. And he argued that the prince or the ruler who doesn't admit this has a reality puts himself in the danger of being destroyed by the people he rules. Personally, I strongly disagree with Machiavelli, because I believe by nature people are generally nice and when people are treated with fairness and respect are more likely to respond with kindness and to respect the ruler. But if the ruler uses the destruction as a way to rule and to make people fear him, soon or later people seek acts of revenge and might not only be people who have been destroyed even those who are working by the side of that ruler or prince might seek revenge in the behalf of those people whom they helped to destroy.

In the Prince volume, Machiavelli provides actual advice on the different ways that someone can get to power. More specific, chapter IV through XIV is the heart of the content in which Machiavelli wrote this volume for. He mentioned how to gain and to rule the newly established states, how the prince should do to maintain his power and control over the people, and how to maintain a strong army.

Overall, Machiavelli wrote the prince as the symbol of guidance to the prince and he wanted to work for the Florentine government, unfortunately, it did not work. His volume was received as a ridiculous idea by people who first read it. But most people have actually used his argument to create a political argument and government regime.

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