The Prince Machiavelli

What is the Socratic Tradition

1. Idealistic
2. Good citizens = makes good cities.
Reward rather than punishment.
Secular model-Plato's republic
Sacred Model-St. Augustine city of God
Pious citizens make a Pious City

What is Aristotelian Tradition?

Machiavelli believe in the Aristotelian Tradition.
1. Practical
2.Good Cities = Make Good Citizens

What is the local Hero?

"Strength of Florence"
The Prince is meant to strengthen Florence.
The contents of the Prince should not be applied outside the context of Florence.
"Kill the babies of the other Rulers"

Caution Against Tyrannts (Princes)

"Common Folks"
The prince is a Satire that shows what can happen if a ruler has too much power.
The prince is meant to caution the common people against the Tyranny of the Prince.
"Dont let the Prince have too much power he will kill the babies"

Anti-Christian Morality:

The prince is on attack on Christian morality because it encourages Rulers to act a morally.
"Against Christian Morals"
"Look at the Prince killing the babies against Christian Religion"

Cold Technician:

"Most Common Interpretation"
The prince is a technical manual for Princes.
Their is no discussion about morality.
"Killed the Babies just because, so you can acquire power"

The Anguish Humanist

"Necessary Evil"
The Prince is about all the horrible things on must do as a prince.
The Prince should fell Anguish (guilty)

Political Morality

(Aristotelian)
Distinction between public morality & private morality.
Things that the prince needs to do might be bad under a private scope but good under a public scope.
"Kill the babies, no remorse for the greater good"

What are the 6 interpretations of the Prince?

1. Local Hero
2. Caution Against Tyrannts
3. Anti-Christian Morality
4. Cold Technician
5. Anguish Humanist
6. Political Morality.
L CAC TP

What are the two kinds of successful Government?

Republic & Principality

What is a Republic?

People are represented
Official are directly responsive to the people.

What is a Principality?

Has a ruler or rulers.

What are the two Principalities?

1. Hereditary (inherited)
2. New (Married acquire or Conquer Territory. )

If you have a new principalities, you have two. What are they?

1. Add-on: Adding territory onto the kingdom.
2. Completely New: You have never been a prince before.

Add on territory are:

Previously a Principality.

Completely New Territories are:

Previously Free
(Machiavelli believes that power derives from the people, so you must kill the people who are not use to being ruled)

What are the three types of Military?

1. your own soldiers (You Militia)
2. Mercenaries: pay to fight: Dangerous
3. Auxiliary Soldiers: Most Dangerous(borrowed from another principality)

What are the two ways to acquire power?

1. Virtu': is the only dependable way. By strength, skill, manliness.(Harder to acquire, easy to maintain)
2. Fortune: Born into power, applies as a New principality. (Easy to acquire, Harder to maintain.)

Heredity State:

1. Don't impose new taxes or laws
2. Don't make people think there's instability.
3. Preserve structure of Government (risk is very high, don't be a orator)
If you are an innovator your people will be angry, if you cause discontent they ill never forget. You don't want your people reminiscing about old rulers.
"Dont bring much attention to yourself."

Problems with an Add On:

1. most of the new subjects will hate you.
Groups that hate you:
1. Supporters from the previous Ruler hate you.
2. Your own supporters: hate you because they want something from you. (You can give much, you don't want to distribute your power because they could take it from you.)

How do you do damage control?(Territory near by has the same culture, same region)

Solution 1: Don't try to add on territory.
Solution 2: a. Insure the previous ruler has no heirs(Kill the babies)
b. Don't impose new laws or taxes.

Different Culture, language and geographical region. What are your options? Three policies?

1. Live in your new territory.(So you can be on top of things.)
2. Send colonies to your new territory and around new territory. (Get both colonies to mingle, cheap and effective)
3. Send an occupying army. (costly, produces hatred and anger, soldiers are abusing power.)

What are the two different kinds of power structures?

1. Governed by a single ruler.
2. Governed by a Monarch w/ Barons.

What is the power structure for a principalities governed by a single ruler?

1. All power come from single ruler.
(Very difficult to take over, easy to hold onto.)
How do you maintain power? Kill the ruler, kill his family. Destroy his army.

What is the power structure for a principalities governed by Monarch w/ Barons?

Monarch doesn't have that much power.
Barons(lower kings) region power in kingdom.
East to take over, hard t hold onto.

Machiavelli believes the:

best form of government is a republic, because it is the most reliable)
He is also a proponent of Liberty.

Previously Free Principalities you must:

1. Level the cities, displace everyone who is accustomed to living in freedom. (kill them all, scatter all of them.)Most reliable is to kill them.
2. Live there in person.
3. Let the people live under their own laws, make them pay you and create their administrative and political elite who will remain loyal to you.

What is Fortune?

1. Acquire power easily.
2. Hard to hold onto power.
3. Luck as oppose to skill.

What is Virtu'?

1. Acquire power with difficulty.
2. Easier to hold onto power.

What are fortune problems?

1. Luck will not build up a system of government.
Virtu will build up a system of gov.

How do you strengthen the weak?

1. Isolate their trade.
2. Don't postpone a war even if your not ready.(element of surprise is on your side, even if you are not ready)
3. Problems & Politics are like consumption: consumption is hard to diagnose & easy to treat.

Problems in Politics:

Easy to fix problem, but hard to diagnose. Moral squash the problem while small, hand to figure out problem unless you have a lot of skill.

Who is Cesare Borgia?

He is an example of a person who has virtu' & fortune.
His father is Pope Alexander VI
His father put him in charge of a state that was in discord, in stable and with ruffians.

Who did Cesare Borgia put in charge to clean up his state?

Remiro D'Orco, was given total power.
1. He was cruel & efficient
2. He established order very quickly.

What did Cesare Borgia do to gain the trust of the people?

He killed Remiro D' Orco once order was establish in the state. By doing this: Cesare gains the trust of the people & loyal subjects. They were both happy and dumbfounded.

If you have to do bad things as a prince you should:

You should make a list of all the bad crimes you should commit and do them all at once. (If you kill over time, this will cause fear and panic and your people will remember the bad things)

If you have to do good things as a prince you should:

Do good things over time, not all at once.

What are two other ways to acquire power?

1. Through Wicked Actions (They will have no glory)
2. Citizen Ruler

Cruelty is well used when?

If the cruelty benefits your citizens in the long run.
(If you are cruel just to be cruel, people will fear you and they will try to overthrow you)

Who is a guy that acquired power thru wicked actions?

Agathocles of Sicily, King of Syracuse.

What are the two types of citizen rulers?

1. Elite
2. Populace

What are the goals of the elite ruler?

1. Wants control of the populace.

What are the goals of the populace ruler?

1. they dont want to be opressed by the elite. (They want to live their lives)

What type of ruler is the elite?

1. Obliged to members of the elite.
2. Puppet for the elite.

What type of ruler is the populace ruler?

1. obliged to no one in particular.
2. almost absolute power.
3. goals are more popular.

Problems with the elite:

1. The elite are more tuned into power struggles.
2. The elite are more likely to betray you and be ambitious.

What are the two different areas of the elite?

1. Those who are tied to your rule(they have something to lose, if you lose your power)
2. Those who are not.
a. are ambitious(treat like sworn enemies)
b. non-ambitious (employ their skills)

A technique to neutralize the elite:

Use their ambition against them.
Put them against each other.
(strengthen the weaker elite, weaken the stronger elite and pit against each other)

How do you measure the strength of a ruler?

1. A prince with no knowledge of military is, at best half a prince.
2. Siege warfare: starving your enemy out, chocking them out.
3. if you are a prince, expect to be besieged.
4. Keep your peoples spirit up.

What is an ecclesiastical State?

1. The church owns/runs the state.
2. Divine Right; rulers authority comes from God.
3. No one will dare attack you.
4. Church runs institutions.
5. smooth sailing for the prince.
6. you ONLY loose power from incredible vices(eating the babies)
7. All the challenges of ruling an ecclesiastical state are encountered before it comes into power.

What are foundations of power?

1. Power is founded on good laws and good armies.
2. good laws can only be guaranteed by good armies.
3. Mercenaries( and auxiliaries) are useless and toxic. they will hurt you if you have them in your army!

What is the problem with mercenaries?

1. They are factious, ambitious, ill disciplined and treacherous.
2. They show off to your allies(advertising themselves trying to look good to get more work)
3. They run in front of your enemies(They don't value your kingdom over their own lives)

How did King Charles conquer Italy:

With a piece of chalk.
In Italy a number was marked over the top of the door ways to show how many soldiers could stay in each home. The mercenaries saw those numbers written in chalk and ran off.

What are the two types of Mercenary commanders?

1. excellent
2. no excellent

What is an excellent mercenary commander?

1. untrustworthy because he is ambitious and will seek further power.

What is a non excellent commander?

1. Incompetent, they will fail you.

A Sovereign( Ruler) should act as his own:

He should act as his own general. Be his own commander for your own army.

A republic should:

Send one of its own. Citizens need to be competent and has a stake in the kingdom.

Mercenaries Lost:

They lost Venetians and territory in one war, what took 800 years to gain.

What are the problems of an Auxiliary Army?

"Most Dangerous"
1. They are competent, but useless.
2. If the Aux lose, the prince(you) lose. (Your life or kingdom)
3. If Aux wins, the prince(you) are their prisoner.
LOSE, LOSE situation!

Personal Characteristics(Reputation) of a Prince:

...

Who is Cicero?

states keeping promises is a representation of Justice.

Generosity

a reputation of generosity is a downward spiral of debt. (The more generous you are the less you able to be generous)(you run out of money and things)
Hide your generosity, don't be showy.

Miserly(Parsimony)

Its better to have a reputation of being miserly.(Stingy)

Exception where you should appear generous:

1. If you are on your way to acquiring power.
2. Once you come into power, tarnish your reputation for being generous.
3. Be generous with other peoples money.
4. To help keep soldiers moral up.

Its better to be:

Feared than loved. Its better to be both.

People are:

obliged by love, but restricted by fear. Fear is more reliable.

Fear can beget:

Hatred. You must inspire the right kind of fear.

Ruler wants to be:

The Fox and the Lion(The best of both worlds)

Fox:

1. Clever
2. Avoid Traps
3. Easy pray for wolves.

Lion:

1. Powerful
2. Not as clever (get trapped easily)

There are two ways to fight:

1. fight like a man
2. fight like a beast.

5 positive qualifies a ruler ought to seem to have:

1. Piety
2. Truthfulness
3. Reliability
4. Sympathy
5. Religiousness (Most important)
PTRSR

People Judge:

more by results than the process.
Moral: A ruler ought to be a hypocrite to get the best mean for his people.

Hatred:

(Hate for what you do)
Has to do with excesses in cruelty.

Contempt:

(Hate for what you are)
Has to go with personal character.

Contemptible Qualities:

1. Erratic Behavior( wild & crazy)
2. Effeminate(opposite of Virtu")
3. Cowardly
4. irresolute(cant come to a decision)

Fastest way to be hated:

1. Steal your subjects property.
2. Steal your subjects women.

If you are not hated there are possibilities in the event of a conspiracy:

1. Fail: conspirators are executed by ruler.
2. Succeed: The people will kill conspirator (if the ruler is not hated)
Best defense is to make sure your not hated.

To avoid being hated:

you delegate unpopular tasks while taking full responsibility for actions that would win you favor.

A good Ruler:

is going to choose a good adviser. "You can check if he is a good ruler by the company that he keeps"

Assessing Advisors:

If and advisors put his own interest before your interests.(or the interests of the people) That advisor is a BAD advisor.

The relationship with your advisor:

You need to cater to his interest, if he ties himself to you, he will be rewarded.

What is Sycophants?

Ass Kissers.

Finding a middle ground between Flattery & Excessive Frankness:

1. A few wise men(namely your advisors ought to tell you the truth, only when you ask them)
2. Everyone else should suck up to you.

If you are a good ruler:

You have good judgement.

Agathocles of Sicily, King of Syracuse:

Came to power thru wicked actions.