Niccolo Machiavelli's The Qualities Of The Prince

When examining 21st century politics one is met with numerous blunders, idiotic and laughable world leaders, Donald Trump’s hair, and continuous wars in the Middle East. Despite this the world is considered to be in relative peace when compared to previous ages in recorded human history. In “The Qualities of the Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli, the ideal prince is described as ruthless and willing to eschew conventional morality to maintain his power, but can the same ideals be held in today’s political world? Machiavelli finds ruthlessness, and deviousness, acceptable and are even praises them as marks of a great leader, where in the 21st century, these qualities would be greatly frowned upon and would probably have the individual branded as a dictator. But simply because it is frowned upon does not mean it doesn’t work, does it? Is this type of mindset still practiced today,and in what type of situations would ends justify the means in today's political world. According to Machiavelli, a prince needs to be both clever and fortunate to acquire power. The conflicting interests of nobility and the common
people make a prince necessity, as he moderates between the two opposing sides, however, a prince will most likely stay in power if he is brought up by the populace. This is not all that different from today’s governing systems such as democracy, from which the governing officials power is granted by the people, and whole political parties can collapse if there’s not enough backing. While serving the general public at face value can be in a party's best interest, the same can be said of serving what can be considered the modern version of nobility such as, corporations, wealthy individuals, and other politicians of high influence. In order to gain power, one must be acknowledged by a copious amount of people, the easiest way to do this is to first be acknowledged by an individual who already wields large influence, henceforth the modern day noble. Though only catering to the needs of the higher class can lead to massive unrest in the society, thus the individual or prince if you will, must alternate between the two in order to stay in high standing, and to be a successful leader. Thus directly paralleling Machiavelli’s earlier statements. Though there is one flaw that must be taken into account, and that is the power already held by the nobles.
As discussed in the passage, a prince needs to treat nobles differently, based on how they swear fealty to them, if not fealty then there prosperity should be tied to the prince. In Machiavellie’s point of view to be independent from the prince means one of two things, from lack of courage, and therefore your forfieting your self to be used as a tool for the prince or, you have your own ends and ambitions in mind. In this case, the prince must be wary of them as potential enemies. The political leaders of today's world are…. less ambitious. Because of the massive backlash of two world wars, and the nuclear incentives that are in play, they are less open about using others for political gain, and are more heedful of making enemies as they could
have adverse effects on a much larger scale than would be expected in Machiavelli's time. That being said being most of the world leaders are hazardous on being reproachful towards larger and more militarized nations, and more crafty world leaders, take advantage of civil unrest to usurp the powers in place, such the Crimea incident of 2014, instead of being open and upfront as Machiavelli suggest. The people are not dismissed by Machiavelli as he states that a prince must gain the favour of the people, regardless of how he acquired power, because he has to rely on them in times of adversity, or war if you will. This is true for all leaders, regardless of the time period, if you do not have the support of the people then you are doomed to fail.