The Morphing of Machiavellian Ideas In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the common people relied on the princes of the day for protection. These princes, therefore, exercised absolute power over their state. They had a duty to protect the people and their land, and a self-preserving instinct to protect, and cultivate, their own power. However, modern democratic forms of government have taken the burden of protecting people and land off of the prince and put it on the people, whether in the form of a true democracy or a representative government, such as The United States enjoys. But still remaining is the self-preserving instinct of the prince, or politician. To the princes trying to get and keep power in the tyrannical institutions of Machiavelli's day, his advice may have been advantageous; however, to modern government, his advice is more applicable to the interrelations between politician and politician, and less toward politician and common people. Interrelations between politicians in modern government can sometimes get complicated. When negotiations between two major leaders break down the result can be war, even in modern government where the decision whether or not to go to war is largely decided by the people or their elected representatives. Machiavelli says that "a prince...must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he take anything as his profession but war" (35), however, this has no place in modern government. For instance, in America, the president is not allowed to declare war without the consent of congress. This is not to say that he should not be concerned with national security, but that this must not be his main avenue of concern. Furthermore, a modern leader need not be completely consumed with the strategies of war, he is allowed, and afforded by the people, certain advisors to council him in these decisions. A modern leader, therefore, needs to be concerned m
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