A 16th-century guide to building an authoritarian state. The ideas still hold up today, you can easily draw parallels with modern Russia. The first part focuses on the state itself, while the second dives into thoughts on republics.

Biography and Context

Machiavelli grew up in Florence and lived from 1498 to 1512. He was the son of a successful, however not particularly wealthy lawyer with plenty of influence and connections. His father was determined to give him the best education possible and even wrote in his diary: “I spent so much money on it, I’m scared to even write down the amount.”

Starting at age seven, Machiavelli studied Latin, but his education wasn’t classical. He didn’t know Greek, so he couldn’t read the works of Greek philosophers in the original Greek, even though The Prince draws clear parallels with Plato’s ideas. Machiavelli was well-educated, but he wasn’t a part of the intellectual elite.

In Machiavelli’s time, learning was starting to become independent from the Church and skilled workers were making a living through their craft. Society was shifting from a religious-centered worldview to a humanist one. In the religious view, God came first and people came second. Humanism flipped that – people came first. The main idea was that the world was made for humans, which the Bible also points out.

The humanist era celebrated what people could do. Humanism was based on the idea that all people are equal, that education matters and that being active and engaged is a key part of life. During Machiavelli’s lifetime, the “Neoplatonist school” took shape – a universal system of logic meant to explain how everything in the world worked.

Then Machiavelli became part of a republican intellectual club that included conspirators plotting against the Medici family, who had regained power in Florence. Some of the conspirators turned out to be Machiavelli’s former students, which led to him being sentenced to death. The Medici later granted him amnesty, but stripped him of all official positions.

The Prince was Machiavelli’s attempt to win back favor with the Medici court. What’s interesting, despite being a supporter of free thought, he wrote a guide on how to build and run an authoritarian state.

Overview

Below is not a word-for-word translation of the text, just a loose retelling of the parts I found interesting.

The state is what holds everything together.

1. Power is what’s needed to keep everything organized. Some people take on that job, they’re the ones in charge of running things.
2. But those people also need support. That support comes from authority and control.
3. The most important part of holding power is reason. It’s a key part of what makes authority work.

When power stays the same for too long, there comes a point where extra resources are wasted just to keep the status quo. This hurts society, because those resources could’ve been used for other kinds of progress.

There are different types of states: inherited, new and mixed. As for the people, some are used to obeying, while others are free. A person becomes a ruler through a mix of boldness and luck.

For a ruler, it’s important to have boldness to achieve great things. That means recognizing the moment and acting in tune with the spirit of the times. Chance is the raw material and with willpower, it can turn into success. Understanding timing means knowing that yesterday was too early and tomorrow will be too late.

Boldness helps reveal the meaning behind events, but actions also need to be strong and decisive. Machiavelli gives an example of a ruler who first sent a tough official to bring order to a city using harsh methods. Once things were under control, the ruler had him cut in half and left his body in the town square. That way, the ruler kept peace and won the people’s support by getting rid of the man they hated.

Qualities like kindness or honesty in politics often end up being long-term mistakes.

Political toughness should look like personal goodness. Executions should inspire both fear and respect as if they were fair. And those in power need to keep up that appearance.

A politician has to be both a person and a beast (a fox and a lion). The lion can’t avoid traps and the fox can’t fight off wolves. That’s why you need to be a fox to spot the traps and a lion to scare off the wolves.

Machiavelli got a lot of ideas from Greek philosophy, but he didn’t mention his sources directly, probably to avoid revealing that he couldn’t read Greek. In one part he comes close to quoting Plato, who believed that all good judgment comes from knowledge. Knowledge means understanding the balance between pleasure and pain. Doing the right thing means knowing how to choose between what feels good and what hurts and picking the lesser pain when you have to. The Greeks called this ability Logos, which means word, reason and balance.

For example, if you’re in a battle and losing, what’s the better choice: to run away and go home or to die fighting? The lesser evil is to die on the battlefield, because if you run, you’ll be killed with shame anyway.

Immoral actions should be covered up with a show of morality in the moment, but in the long run they might actually turn out to be merciful. In the moment, the crowd is drawn to success. The masses don’t see long-term consequences.
And when the masses completely merge with the state, there’s no room for reflection, everything becomes part of the crowd and critical thinking disappears.

If the nobility sees itself as equal, you can offer new nobles new positions. That way, they’ll know you can take those privileges away and that gives you control over them.

Conclusion: It’s surprising how clearly and calmly Machiavelli explains how an authoritarian state is built. When you’re living in one, you keep hearing that “the state is for the people.” But really, it’s the other way around – the people are for the state. And that, for Machiavelli, is what real political strength looks like.