Blog Post #3

Machiavelli's The Prince was essentially the guide to ruling a country for the Renaissance age sovereign. In my opinion, the methods suggested in The Prince were brilliant for the time that they were created. In the 16th century, Absolutism was on the rise and the majority of european states were in a constant struggle for land and power. The methods suggested by Machiavelli, as immoral as they may seem sometimes (on pg. 17 Machiavelli explains that the only certain way to hold power over a newly acquired territory is to kill all the citizens and destroy it, then start from scratch), were the best ways to rule a country for the time period.

But we are no longer in the 16th century, we are in the 21st, and it is obvious that the world and its governments don't rule the same way as before. Absolutism is no longer the predominant form of government, and modern european monarchies have little power in comparison to their countries parliaments. Today, the predominant political structure of the main powers of the world are Democratic or Socialist, and Machiavelli clearly states that The Prince is on ruling Principalities, not Democracies. And frankly, if President Obama or Prime Minister Cameron went around taking over countries and killing its inhabitants to establish their power, the UN and the world would be in an uproar. Also, today the political and territorial structure of Europe and the US is a lot more stable, and the threat of a sudden change of government or invasion is minimal. This makes many of the ideologies present in The Prince redundant.

However, there might be one or two pieces of advice that could be useful to heads of state today. For example, the latter portion of The Prince talks about how a ruler has to find balance between two qualities in order to be a good ruler, for example, generosity and parsimony. A head of state today would not be able to tax heavily without a huge uproar, but they would also not be able to give huge tax cuts as well, because if tax cuts were given equally, the citizens would not like having to pay more taxes again. Even so, overall The Prince is a little to outdated to todays political structure.