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100 Books | The real philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli in "The Prince" | Faisal Warraich - AI Summary, Mind Map & Transcript | Faisal Warraich | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: 100 Books | The real philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli in "The Prince" | Faisal Warraich
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Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince" is a controversial treatise offering pragmatic, often amoral, advice to rulers on how to acquire and maintain power, particularly in unstable political environments, reflecting the author's observations of 16th-century Italy.
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Hi, friends?
The famous Italian philosopher
Niccolò Machiavelli
is one of those people who
taught rulers how to stay in power.
To date, the ways he set,
have been followed by the rulers.
But there is no occasion in history
when he was not controversial.
And he was not scathingly criticized.
You know that many power players
taunt their opponents
ascribing them to Machiavelli
and say that person is a follower of Machiavelli.
Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) is often accused of it
and people in power in Pakistan also blame each other for this
Perhaps not many people know that
that Machiavelli wrote the book "The Prince"
the best-seller
that can have less than 200 pages in a modern print font.
Why did he write The Prince?
Here you will hear a brief history of Machiavelli and his book.
Friends, Niccolò Machiavelli was born in 1469 in Florence, Italy.
But it was the time when
Italy, once the centre of the Roman Empire,
had now been torn apart,
means it was badly disintegrated.
Small city-states had been established in this geography
wherein war and conflicts were routine affairs.
and palatial intrigues and looting at the prime.
This entire region and the Italians
had become so weak
that they fell dependent on the powerful neighbours Spain and France,
The Italians had become a symbol of a weak nation.
It proverbially goes about Itlanians that, they do not know even know how to fight.
In this situation and the geography, Machiavelli was raised.
Then Florence was a city-state within the geography of Italy.
But even in this urban state,
hide-and-seek between democracy and dictatorship was on.
Sometimes a popular government would come into being
and sometimes any royal family would bring dictatorship.
In the early years of Machiavelli, a royal family, the Medici was in power.
After some time the people of the city
overthrew the Medici dynasty and
and again set up a civil government.
Machiavelli got much eminence in this democratic rule.
He played an important political role in the city till 1512.
The democratic government appointed him ambassador
and as ambassador, he travelled far and wide.
Around Florence in Europe
the civil governments were few, and many were princely states
whose rulers were also called princes.
The major empires of the time like the Ottoman Empire,
England, France, Holy Roman etc. were also
ruled by emperors
where any powerful family was enthroned.
In these empires and states,
intrigues and
wars used to take place.
At that time unrest also gripped India.
Babur set up the Mughal Empire shortly after that
and Machiavelli knew it.
The European Empire also had wars with the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Sultan Selman the Magnificent ended the Mamluk Empire in Egypt
that completely abolished the Abbasid Caliphate
and the Caliphate came to the Ottoman Empire,
Machiavelli saw all that
and also what were the strong states and European princes doing.
Whichever court Machiavelli would visit as ambassador,
he observed the empires and princely states very minutely.
He studied their culture and history
and looked into the outcomes of conspiracies and wars.
Observing all that,
he formed an opinion
that what acts make a king or prince successful
and why they fail?
Machiavelli served as ambassador to Florence for a long.
In 1512 once again,
the Medici dynasty took over.
Towards the stalwarts of democracy, the Medici dynasty
went strongly vindictive for they had overthrown their rule.
Machiavelli was also a target of the Medici dynasty.
He was accused of conspiring against the government
so he was held and hung upside down.
He was tied by the wrist
and swung from the ceiling
and the rope would be cut to get him to fall to the ground.
The fear of being tied and falling down
as well as a long awakening had wrecked his nerves.
The repeated falls had caused him deep injuries.
Finally, a day he was released.
In poor health and misery, Machiavelli was no more active in politics.
After years of suffering, he died anonymously in Florence in 1527.
Several years before his death,
he wrote a book
of all his experiences, to advise a ruler, he called a Prince,
as to how could he make his state strong
and deal with repeated revolts and avoid failures?
This book was printed in 1532, five years after his death.
One must have this entire background in mind while reading The Prince,
to know why he wrote this book.
In The Prince, Machiavelli starts with
two types of rulers in the world, meaning the world he lives in.
One had inherited the power from their forefathers
which implies he is a hereditary prince.
The other is the prince, who through his own strength,
or due to some turn of history became the ruler.
He says for a hereditary prince
it is quite easy to rule
because the state is already tamed to obey the order of his family.
So it is nothing new to them.
As long as a hereditary prince is oppressive or does not commit a blunder or prove coward,
the power players of the state and the people remain loyal to him.
So governance is not difficult for him.
However, the second type of prince,
one who gets power by chance,
faces difficulties.
He meets multiple challenges.
Firstly, Machiavelli says,
such a Prince has a constant fear
that the hereditary prince can come anytime
or his heir may return.
Similarly, the people who bring him into power,
also, begin to resent him.
These people have their own interests in supporting the new prince.
When that prince fails to deliver on their interests
or takes time therein,
which is possible,
the supporters in power begin to conspire against him.
The people also do not like to back the new prince
as their affiliation is with the old prince and his family,
whose rule they are accustomed to,
and they want to see them in power.
Hence, for a new prince governance is fairly difficult.
The prince who comes to power by force
is somewhat secure.
But a person who comes into government by chance
is not secure at all.
He often ends up facing challenges.
Machiavelli says a prince who
replaces a hereditary ruler
and comes into power,
must be ever ready to deal with difficulties.
First of all, he should at the earliest,
finish the royal family completely.
Then he should wipe out all his opponents.
He must do all that soon after assuming the power,
because delay therein,
means more difficulties.
After quickly ending the opponents
the prince should not kill anymore.
If he does so,
then he would go as cruel and killer.
Apart from this, the Prince must always
be vigilant about his security and the people around him.
He should keep flatterers away.
Keep a close eye on conspirators.
He should neither be too lenient
nor too harsh.
He needs to continuously give the impression
that he can take action according to the need of time.
He can be kind,
generous
and can also blow head without any remorse if time demanded it.
Prince must stick to his principles.
That whatever he decides,
laws he makes and what he declares,
should be fully observed by him.
If he repeatedly backs out on his words,
people will not trust him, and he will lose his credibility.
The power of words for a ruler,
is worthier than the power of a sword.
Machiavelli says
that a Prince should
never eye the wealth of people and their women.
Doing so will be a fatal mistake.
That no quality men will get around him.
A Prince should be kind to people,
but in a way, he is not taken as a coward.
Excessive kindness results
in unrest.
This leads to looting and killing.
So the Prince must be so strict and cruel if necessary
that it keeps order in the state
and anyone will think a hundred times before turning disloyal.
Machiavelli says an oppressive prince
capable of maintaining order in the state
is better than a kind prince
who has disorder and anarchy in the state.
A Prince has another factor that
plays a main role in his rise and fall, is the system of state
States the Prince rule
are of two types.
in relation to the system.
One is the state where the Prince is all-in-all
and has representatives exercising power in his name.
The representatives neither hold the power of their own
nor public representation.
Second is the state ruled by a king but at the lower level
local chiefs and those govern,
who enjoy popular support.
No matter if it is due to inheritance or any other reason.
In the first type of state where the Prince rules through his representatives
is very difficult to capture.
Because an external power
will not get any internal help to attack it.
As the people will be direct sympathisers of the Prince.
Since people do not support official representatives
therefore joining hands with the external power
for revolt against the prince will not be possible.
While the Prince has the option
of rallying the people under his banner, and
can easily defeat external power and internal rebellion.
If the Prince is defeated for any reason,
and the enemy destroys the royal family, the new ruler
will govern easily.
That is, it will be difficult to gain power over such a state,
but it will be easy to hold it
because apart from the royal family,
people are not loyal to any other.
So they are not able to revolt.
Officials of the past ruler, lack public support
to rise against external power.
Machiavelli holds the Ottoman Empire as a glaring example of it.
Here the sultan ruled through his loyalists.
As per the situation when The Prince was written,
it was the best example of such a state
where everything is in a ruler, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire
He says it is the best example of it.
It is very difficult to take over the Ottoman Empire
because a royal family is holding the entire empire
and its representatives are governing. If someone ever took over
retaining that possession will be very easy.
Like Turkey,
another example of such a state, according to Machiavelli
is the Persian Empire during the time of Alexander the Great.
The Iranian Empire whose emperor Darius
was defeated by Alexender
who had captured the state.
But when Alexander the Great died
no revolt took place against the Greek occupation of the Iranian territories.
The successors of Alexander had feuds
and divided the empire among themselves.
But there was no public revolt
because the Iranian Empire was like the Ottoman Empire, was the first type of empire
wherein the Prince is all-in-all.
In the second type of state,
wherein local chieftains hold power after the Prince,
is easier to capture.
Because any local leader therein
with the help of people
or any external power can overthrow the throne.
But the point is, capturing such a state is easy
but very difficult to keep possession.
Because the new Prince feels as much threat from local leaders
as did his predecessor Prince.
Because local leaders are everything to the people,
therefore, if they get a chance to fight a prince,
they will not back down,
because their first loyalty is to the chieftain.
Machiavelli frequently refers to human psychology in The Prince.
He writes, conquering land is in human nature
so he tends to meet this desire when gets power.
Therefore man cannot be blamed for this
but should be praised.
And the problem is only when
man tends to conquer lands without holding capacity.
So, if a Prince has insufficient power
to get hold of a state,
he should avoid getting into this mess.
Machiavelli says if a prince occupies a territory
and to retain that possession
he has three basic options.
The first is, the total destruction of the occupied area
and secondly, he personally resides there for direct control,
The third is, getting his people settled on that land
in order to turn the demography (number of people) in his favour.
meaning that his supporters outnumber others.
A fourth way is also that
the area is entrusted to the chosen local rulers for tribute.
However, this process is not much successful
as often rebellion occurs in that land as the Prince is removed.
Therefore, the best way to capture a city and
keep it in the fold is
to destroy it completely,
as the Romans did to their enemy
when they destroyed the capital of the Carthaginian Empire.
The city was reduced to rubble,
in order to render it unable to stand before them again.
Machiavelli especially seeks the destruction of the cities
where the people are accustomed to democracy and public rule.
Because retaining hold of them is impossible
and they are not destroyed,
they will destroy the Prince.
He tells the reason
that the citizens will always miss the past liberties
and the people will be vulnerable to rise against the occupying power.
No matter how much they are benefited,
their freedom and its value will remain in this mind.
Machiavelli gives the example of the Italian city, Pisa
a liberal and democratic that fell to Florence,
and it was left undestroyed
so, this city got independence in a century.
A destructed Pisa would have never been able to get freedom.
According to Machiavelli,
the Prince should be vigilant of the states around him.
The weak states should be taken over in the name of protection.
That is, they should be captured.
And the powerful states
must be made weak.
In Prince's neighbourhood
a powerful state is a potential threat to him.
Whichever weak state a Prince captures
he must take care of two things.
First, in the name of trade or aid, never allow a foreign power
to enter it.
Secondly, never let an individual get power.
But if either of the two happened,
Prince will weaken his writ.
Machiavelli gives the example of the Roman Empire,
that is how the Romans never let a Greek leader get power.
They would kill him before he could get power.
He also gives the example of the 15th century Italy
that in a rift between two towns, they
called France for help and lost more than half of Italy.
Despite criticising the governments of France and Italy,
Machiavelli was largely impressed with France.
It appears from his book
The Prince that 16th century France is a role model of good government.
Machiavelli praises the French Parliament.
You have seen in our series on the French Revolution,
that in the French Parliament common man
and the elitists both had representation.
The parliament implemented the decisions of the king, thus
the king was not directly blamed for any tough decision.
For Machiavelli, it was a good institution
to protect the government of Prince,
and it was also true.
Machiavelli in The Prince, tells another exciting thing.
He says in any conflict in neighbouring states, the Prince must
not be neutral.
If he remains neutral,
the victorious state will also attack him in the long run.
People of the defeated state will not love you nor
they will sympathize with you
because they will take it to heart
that when they were losing life
the neighbouring Prince did not come to their aid.
That the conqueror and the conquered
both
will turn against the neutral prince and his kingdom.
So Prince should never remain neutral.
He should see who will be the winner
and then support him.
According to The Prince,
changing the system of a state is the most difficult task.
Because those who
are benefiting from the past system
go hostile to the new reforms.
And those who support these reforms,
do not stand with the Prince when the time comes.
Machiavelli wants to say
that care should be taken while replacing the old system with a new one.
The character of Machiavelli's Prince is incarnate of both a lion and a fox.
A lion is very powerful,
has good grace and is fearsome,
yet he is unable to pick up the noose secretly laid in his way.
While the fox can detect the hidden traps
but cannot defend itself against attack from the wolves.
The Prince must clear his way like a fox,
then act like a lion to respond to the wolves' attacks,
so that the wolves fear even his name.
Machiavelli says men who for the sake of honour
try to become lions soon go out of the mind of others.
Machiavelli also explains the objective of
writing The Prince.
He tells us about the ruination of Italy like the Jews had
and Moses gathered and helped them.
When the Iranians were being crushed, Cyrus the Great had saved them.
He finds a similar situation in Italy calling anyone to help it out.
Protect it from external invaders
and also from internal chaos.
So basically what he advises in The Prince
is to that he thinks the Prince would come
and save Italy
and make Italy prosperous.
Like a patriot, Machiavelli wanted
his country to be driven out of difficulties.
When this book was published in 1532 and made Machiavelli popular
many objections were raised to this book which were somewhat justified
Mostly his principles were objected to on the moral grounds
and his ideas were described as very short-sighted.
Critics said his advice to the Prince
aimed to bring temporary peace to the state
but no lasting peace.
The second major objection was
Machiavelli's misunderstanding of human psychology.
Because man does not do everything
for himself or for the sake of the state
That a man also acts for kindness and friendship.
These elements are necessary for a strong state.
Some voices were also raised in support of Machiavelli.
The supporters say, Machiavelli
objectively looked into his era.
He followed realism and not idealism
At a chaotic time he
gave practical ideas to make a state stable
Machiavelli had read and seen the living examples of those ideas
The Prince was correct or incorrect,
anybody can have an opinion on it
buy the fact remains
that relevance of The Prince can be seen in many states.
After five hundred years, the situation is
that who shuns morality and adopts means of win or loss for power
is said to be a follower of Machiavelli.
Generally, tyrants and dictators are called Machiavellian leaders.
Well, if we look deeply,
many rulers will be seen as overt or covert followers of Machiavellian ideas.
Which you think, are the rulers today following Machiavellian principles?
Give it in your comments.
Friends also follow our Twitter account,
we also get your opinion there.
For the story of Prince Mohammed bin Salman
click here,
for he is also known as a follower of Machiavellian ideas.
Here you can know the story of Frankenstein's monster
and here know what is the ideal state utopia?
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