Further Political Philosophy - HCJ Week Four

So week four was seminar time, and having missed the first seminar for this module due to illness in week 2, it was an interesting experience. The students take it in turns to lead the sessions, further discussing the previous weeks reading and lectures.
In my previous blog on this topic I discussed at length the work of Plato, Hobbes and Locke. In the seminar we largely focused on Hobbes and Locke, and the as yet unmentioned Macchiavelli, so I'm going to focus on summarising Macchiavelli.

MACCHIAVELLI

Macchiavelli's work was more or less practical observations on how best to achieve and retain power. His two major works were 'The Prince' and 'The Discourse'. To get a complete picture of his philosophy, it is necessary to read both, as reading either alone will give you a pretty narrow view of what he was all about.
Macchiavelli's views were somewhat controversial, but in many ways he made a lot of sense. His basic argument in The Prince is that a leader must do whatever is necessary to maintain power, forget about what is good and bad, right and wrong, and do what is required to keep power. So for a leader, the number one priority and focus must be the retention of power. This sounds extreme, however it could be argued that many or even all leaders follow this theory to some extent, whether its establishing a military dictatorship or making empty promises in election manifestos, most all leaders will do what they deem necessarry to retain their position of power.
Macchiavelli suggested that the best way to lead was by the generation of fear, as: "love is fickle, but fear is constant". However he also made it clear that you must avoid being hated, as that is bound to lose you power. So the overall picture is do whatever is necessarry to retain power, let people fear you, but don't let them hate you.

I'm gonna leave it at that for this post, keep 'em wanting more and all that. Plus this has the added bonus of finally achieving a reasonably concise blog post. Expect two or three more before the end of today though, I've got some catching up to do...