Niccolo Machiavelli, "The prince’s morals"

In “The Prince’s Morals”, Niccolo Machiavelli discusses the various methods to be a successful prince. He claims that a prince cannot always be good, and if he wants to keep his position he must learn not to be good. Basically, Machiavelli claims that if you are too generous, ungenerous people will take advantage of you and take power away from you.

If a prince does not want to rob his people and avoid poverty, he must be a miser or greedy. This is what keeps a prince in power. Machiavelli always claims that it is better for a ruler to be merciful than cruel. A ruler must be somewhat cruel to keep his subjects united and loyal, but he must be merciful so as not to always drive his subjects. Furthermore, Machiavelli believes that it was better to be feared than loved. He believes that he is simply more secure and that the nature of man makes it harder to overthrow a feared leader than a loved one.

I agree with most of the points that Machiavelli makes. I think you can’t be too generous with your minions or else they will take advantage of you. Many of the great rulers who were too generous to the people ended up in bloodshed due to small things that the ruler overlooked. You must be on your guard and not be taken advantage of if you try to be generous.

I also think it’s smarter to be merciful than cruel. A cruel leader will drive away his subjects and eventually lead to a revolution. A merciful leader will earn the respect of his subjects and thus continue to rule peacefully. Lastly, it is better to be feared than loved. This makes sense because if you are loved, certain people have control over you because you most likely love them too. However, if you are feared, you are above all and no one can force you to do anything against your will, but you can still maintain the loyalty of your subjects.