Contemporary Machivellianism: The Neoliberal Prince 2
Machiavellianism wrongly is considered to be synonym of political coups, conspiracies, treachery and deception and immorality in general since his life time itself. Philosophers do not invent justices and injustices. They already exist in the society. Philosophers only react and response to and reflect upon them. Machiavelli shocked his contemporaries by unmasking the bitter realities of statecraft prevalent among the renaissance despotism on their way to modern liberal state via what are called enlightened absolutist, monarchies of the enlightenment era in Europe. He was a philosopher of real politic, concerned with what is than what ought to be. Machiavelli did not invent political coups, conspiracies, treachery and deception, these had already been happening in Renaissance monarchies. He just noted them down with a brilliant insight. The revolutionary aspect of Machiavelli lies in not only what he says but also in what he ignores – the existing socio-religious values of good and evil, which he rendered relative from absolute. Machiavelli liberated politics from the clutches of theology and placed it at top. For early philosophers state or politics have an extra political end, justice, for example, in the case of Plato. Politics – attaining, maintaining and extending power--, according to him, has no extra political end, but is an end in itself, for which the sanctity of means is irrelevant, so are the moral-ethical questions. Machiavelli not only changed the terms of discourse but quashed the existing paradigm and inaugurated a new paradigm for the future analysis. Efficiency in statecraft is the virtue, for the prudent prince. Machiavelli’s Prince is in the form of advice on statecraft-- to the Prince. This is not a divinely ordained or dynastic Prince but a Condotierre – a mercenary leader rising from the status of a private person, who leads his people (by war that can be replaced by the election in liberal democracies) to found a new state. Machiavelli is considered to have laid the foundation of the modern political theory and the foundation is so influential that not only determines the shape of the edifice but also its structure with an endurance to take on many stories. The assumptions and conclusions of his statecraft were, though, reflections on Renaissance absolutism, are equally valid for the statecraft of "representative' democracies. Rise of 2 new democratic Princes – Modi and Kejriwal – in Indian politics could be contemporary models of the Prince, though, from varying and opposite perspectives.
Machiavellianism wrongly is considered to be synonym of political coups, conspiracies, treachery and deception and immorality in general since his life time itself. Philosophers do not invent justices and injustices. They already exist in the society. Philosophers only react and response to and reflect upon them. Machiavelli shocked his contemporaries by unmasking the bitter realities of statecraft prevalent among the renaissance despotism on their way to modern liberal state via what are called enlightened absolutist, monarchies of the enlightenment era in Europe. He was a philosopher of real politic, concerned with what is than what ought to be. Machiavelli did not invent political coups, conspiracies, treachery and deception, these had already been happening in Renaissance monarchies. He just noted them down with a brilliant insight. The revolutionary aspect of Machiavelli lies in not only what he says but also in what he ignores – the existing socio-religious values of good and evil, which he rendered relative from absolute. Machiavelli liberated politics from the clutches of theology and placed it at top. For early philosophers state or politics have an extra political end, justice, for example, in the case of Plato. Politics – attaining, maintaining and extending power--, according to him, has no extra political end, but is an end in itself, for which the sanctity of means is irrelevant, so are the moral-ethical questions. Machiavelli not only changed the terms of discourse but quashed the existing paradigm and inaugurated a new paradigm for the future analysis. Efficiency in statecraft is the virtue, for the prudent prince. Machiavelli’s Prince is in the form of advice on statecraft-- to the Prince. This is not a divinely ordained or dynastic Prince but a Condotierre – a mercenary leader rising from the status of a private person, who leads his people (by war that can be replaced by the election in liberal democracies) to found a new state. Machiavelli is considered to have laid the foundation of the modern political theory and the foundation is so influential that not only determines the shape of the edifice but also its structure with an endurance to take on many stories. The assumptions and conclusions of his statecraft were, though, reflections on Renaissance absolutism, are equally valid for the statecraft of "representative' democracies. Rise of 2 new democratic Princes – Modi and Kejriwal – in Indian politics could be contemporary models of the Prince, though, from varying and opposite perspectives.
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