The end justifies the means

This is no entertaining book. It teaches a lot, but it does not entertain. More kind of essay than anything else. It was written by the so highly commented Macchiavelli. Most of Macchiavelli's writings are known for their lack of morality and 'The Prince' is one of his major works. The book was written in 1513 and is divided into 26 chapters ( about 125 pages ).

As a matter of fact, one gets introduced into the world of politics by reading Macchiavelli. In it, the Italian writer and diplomat gives trustworthy counsels to the Prince Lorenzo de Medicis, who ruled Italy at that time, in order to maintain his domains.

As I have said the most important feature of his ouvrage is the lack of morality in everything concerning politics:

"A wise prince cannot and should not keep his pledge when it is against his interest to do so and when his reasons for making the pledge are no longer operative."

In other words, according to him you just should break your pledge every time it does no longer brings any good to you.

But his political conclusions are not driven out of sheer whim. He indeed was used to living among men and learned that one does better by treating them like beasts rather than with honesty:

"If all men were good, this would be a bad precept, but since they are evil and would not keep a pledge to you, then you need not keep yours to them."

At the core of his thesis lies the so many times repeated " the end justifies the means " and a good and wise prince should learn this from the start:

"You must recognize that there are two ways of fighting: by means of law, and by means of force. The first belongs properly to man, the second to animals; but since the first is often unsufficient, it is necessary to resort to the second. Therefore, a prince must know how to use both what is proper to man and what is proper to beasts."

Macchiavelli does even justify crimes if through them the prince can get hold of what is necessary to increase power and keep control over his domains.

As you can see his statements do not differ very much from what modern politicians do nowadays. I just wrote DO and not SAY. Because that is precisely the point of it all. They say one thing to their citizens while doing the other:

"A certain ruler of our time, whom it is better not to name*, preaches nothing but peace and faith, yet he is the extreme enemy of both; and if he had been true to either of them, he would more than once have lost power and reputation."

Someone could misjudge Macchiavelli by considering him a traitor or something worse, but he was very loyal indeed to his country and kept working to free Italy from foreign occupation:

"I love my country more than my soul."

* Fernando of Aragon, King of Spain