Niccolo Machiavelli's Book the Prince

¶ … Niccolo Machiavelli's book The Prince is more interesting than Utopia by Thomas More because it provides a more realistic portrayal of politics in society. The descriptions by both authors of what constitutes a good ruler are at extreme odds with each other. Whereas More for example envisions a prince as being a ruler who should not covet material riches but be content with what he is provided for by society, Machiavelli realizes that a prince, like all human beings, can possess certain undesirable traits such as greed and miserliness.

Machiavelli explains that since it is natural for a prince to possess both good and bad traits, he should only avoid being rebuked by society for his bad traits so much that he endangers his rule. However at the same time, according to Machiavelli, a prince should not be too fearful of being rebuked because sometimes engaging in his bad traits may be beneficial towards continuing his rule while engaging in virtues may cause him to lose it.

Thus Machiavelli's portrayal of the prince as being someone with both good and bad traits is a much more realistic understanding about human nature than is More's portrayal. The idealistic society described by More envisions its members as having no desire to acquire material goods such as gold, silver, precious jewels, land, grand homes, and fine clothing, a vision which can be regarded as wishful thinking on the part of its author.

Another difference to be found between both authors' work is in regard to how the ruler is to spend his country's financial resources. More provides an idealistic scenario of this, when he describes how rulers should distribute resources evenly between all the towns in Utopia after examining which of them experienced scarcity and which prosperity; he explains that trade should not be allowed to take place between towns.

He envisions Utopia as having an endless amount of resources, due to its citizens being content with what little they use and to storing the rest of it for future use. This is again an idealistic notion of human nature, going back to imagining humans as permanently ridding themselves of their bad traits. In regard to this Machiavelli acknowledges that being liberal, which is how he describes a ruler freely spending his country's resources, is a good quality to have.

However he believes that this quality, if unregulated, could lead to a prince's ruin. If according to Machiavelli a prince were to spend a country's resources too excessively and begin heavily taxing his subjects as a result of that, he would risk losing their loyalty. Machiavelli recognized that in reality resources would always remain limited no matter how much of it is saved for future use. Thus this entailed that rulers would need to learn how to spend wisely and minimally.

Machiavelli thus stated that being miserly with one's resources was better for rulers in that case, since then he would have enough resources to spend when necessary. His subjects, though disliking his miserliness, would nonetheless remain loyal to him due to his spending resources wisely. Finally, Machiavelli believed that so long as a prince kept up a guise of having faith and of possessing good qualities, he could maintain his rule. According.