Part 1: The Prince by Machiavelli
To what degree do modern political leaders demonstrate Machiavellian traits?
According to Machiavelli principles of leadership, a leader should be bold in his rule and manipulative towards ensuring that they maintain absolute control of those that they rule. While these principles have been greatly studied and reached mass criticism, they have proven to very effective. The Machiavellian ideologies continue to dominate in the contemporary society with multiple leaders exhibiting such traits especially in Monarchial and Dictatorial regimes. Also, in most One Party states the leaders exhibit these character traits because of the need to maintain absolute control on the affairs of the country. Some of the notable examples that use the approach are Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s maintains a very close control of the affairs of the country and have in the recent years changed the laws to ensure that he stays in power. He has been ruthlessly known to handle the competition through unorthodox means including use of the state power, unlawful arrests all which follow the Machiavellian principles.
To what degree do you agree with Machiavelli’s ideas? What ideas would you debate with him?
I agree with the Machiavellian Ideas to a great extent especially when applied in countries with cultural framework defined by a High Power Distance Index. Effective leadership in these countries requires a firm leader who inspires fear more than love because the latter does not inspire confidence among the followers. Fear, control and absolute certainty among the qualities that inspire confidence among the followers and while they attract a huge criticism, their approach guarantees stability in these regions. For example, in the wake of the Arab spring uprising the failure to stabilize by most of these countries including Syria and Libya is mainly due to the lack of a leader who have mastered the art of applying these principles.
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Part 2: Thomas More's Utopia
To what degree do you agree with More’s assessment about how private property affects individuals and society?
More’s ideological principles of a Utopian state where the ownership of property is not private and there is fair distribution of wealth for the all citizen are very idealistic. In theory these perceptual views may be applied towards eliminating the key issues that he focuses on such as poverty, crime and social injustices. However, the application of this approach is impossible because private ownership is one of the key drivers of societal growth. And more, it inspires competitive principles among citizen. Albeit the adverse impact that private property ownership brings, it is effective to stimulate personal efforts towards achieving set goals and objectives. Thus, in the acknowledgement of this fact, I disagree with Mores’ assessment of eliminating private ownership as a way to solve all societal problems. Some of the causal factors of these social problems problem, unfair distribution of resources emerge from inherent negative traits that human beings possess such as greed and criminal behavior.
More so, while the Utopia that Thomas More envisions has no some of the adverse impacts prevalent in England at the time, it impractical to imagine that conflicts only arise from privatization of property.
How would Machiavelli answer Thomas More, if he had the chance?
If Machiavelli had the chance, he would answer More’s perceptual using arguments that discredited the assumptions that power and property can at any be shared equally among all people. He would oppose his ideologies and probably refer to them as being too idealistic to practical. More so, he would also strongly criticize his assumptions as being fictional
Can you think of any society, past or present, which has managed to function without private property? Explain .
Whether in the past or the present, I cannot think of a country that has existed without or rather functioned without a form of private property ownership. This is because it is inherent in human nature to value a sense of ownership of some sort such as houses, animals and land.
Given the choice, would you choose to live in a political system as envisioned by Machiavelli or More? Explain your rationale .
Given the choice, I would choose to live in a Utopian political state because while, it may be a very hard concept to apply, guarantees equality and fairness of the resource distribution. In the absence unjust practices, it becomes very effective in the way that a society functions and inspires a form of collaboration towards personal growth.
