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niccolã², machiavelli 16th century italian diplomat political thinker arch body his name conjures up everything that sly about human behavior well, we have an image of what the machiavellian is. i mean the word is in our dictionaries. he is an adjective machiavellian astute cunning intriguing controlling powerful sinister underhand be fearless cunning

subtle nefarious manipulative and to a degree cruel peter mandelson regularly gets described as machiavellian. i was greatly described as as machiavellian and it's all because of [it] the prince written 500 years ago, it's about power how to get it and how to keep it it can be said of men that they're ungrateful fickle liars and deceivers [a] shun danger and a greedy of profit therefore it is necessary for a ruler who was just to maintain his position to learn how to be able

not to be good machiavelli wrote the prince 1513 it was shocking then and it's shocking now it's almost if his name itself macke evil it just lends itself to a form of demonization [chapter] 17 of cruelty and mercy and whether it is better to be loved and feared [for] [the] country there's actually nobody in history who's had more influence on modern affairs on politics the [niccolã²], machiavelli? so what are we to make of the prints on this its 500th anniversary? how useful and relevant is it today?

one of the most important books ever it and are really useful how-to guide for contemporary out? what machiavelli [write] should we all learn how [not] [to] be good is it better to be feared than loved and who are the 21st century machiavelli? actually were not in florence. we're ten miles south of florence in sankarsana this was machiavelli's country house in the 1500s, and i'm here for a guided tour [quick] i lost audio the way much [of] [a] less [creepy] oil three inches in where he wrote the prints see if you're exactly a monitor and thank you, sir he's gotta find the same [encanto] varmints across and the nails that crossed over there hmm my assistant is headed back to his name

malik levin lee so related with the cross and the nails of christ not a bad coat of arms for a man who for centuries was known as the antichrist? but the cross of nails might just as well [stand for the violent times machiavelli lived through florence was a city-state occupying and controlling only a very small portion of a very chaotic italy surrounded by other city-states that were allies on tuesday enemies on wednesday, and then allies again on thursday the situation was constantly changing. it was very treacherous. you didn't know who your friends were and you couldn't trust anyone so they had to be clever before he wrote the prince machiavelli worked here at the palazzo vecchio in florence

the old regime run by the medici had just been deposed a new regime was in charge and machiavelli served them as a high-flying diplomat machiavelli found himself at the center of all the diplomatic and political negotiations within that period and it was his ability as a political analyst that enabled him to advance but just when things were going so [well] machiavelli the medici returned to power an event took a dramatic turn events that would ultimately lead to the writing of the prince he was falsely accused in february of 1513 of taking part in an anti medici and conspiracy, and he's horribly tortured and then he's thrown into prison there aren't many documents relating to machiavelli at this time

but this year british historian stephen milner discovered one of the most important of all he was researching florentine town crier when he stumbled across machiavelli's arrest warrant florence was an incredible place for collecting documents and partly could they didn't trust each other where are we berger? oh there? we [go], so this is it he just happened to i ordered this particular volume, and this was the one that contained the original proclamation that was carried through the city by the town crier and that they actually would have read and held whilst on horseback through the various places where these proclamations were made?

here's a little hole in the middle ready put them on a spike for record-keeping and here we see nicodemus a bernardo, machiavelli so what is the arrest for the proclamation? is asking it's a notice asking for the whereabouts of machiavelli and for people to come forward with information? that she says within the hour into that order order that order which gives you some idea of the urgency that lay behind his arrest it says if they are not informed they will not be excused, but there are no excuses for not notify it is a kind of [most-wanted] proclamation if you like i think working in the archives in [france]

it's kind of a drug in a sense of our kite fever you never know when you turn a page what you're going to bump into and there's a lovely proverb from the renaissance periods of courtesy fat shit big a one-way falacci get it in writing you can't trust anybody, and it's almost a kind of mantra and machiavelli's own writing. i think well here. we are in the [bud] jello which is the florentine police headquarters? and this is where machiavelli was bought shortly after he was [arrested]. [he]? [claimed] that he was tortured that he was actually put on a form of rack that he went three notches on the rack without cracking

but there's absolutely no evidence that he was involved in this conspiracy but he has a stroke of good fortune as well, which is the next month the pope julius dies and the medici acquired the papacy nay of the tenth and he declares great rejoicings in the city and an amnesty and so machiavelli is freed but he was in effect banned from the city who sent out his farmhouse and kept under house arrest rather like being on probation. he was he had to remain within a certain distance of the city, and that's where in his study he began to write what we now know as the prince and here he is those who wish to win the favor of a prince will generally approaching the gifts. they believe will most delighting and

and we see princes being offered horses, arms vestments of gold and similar accoutrements i've found among my possessions nothing, and i value higher and my knowledge [of] the deeds of great men this is how machiavelli begins the prince in 1513 with a dedication to lorenzo the magnificent the young medici ruler it was a blatant attempt to suck up to the new regime you need me say because i know the secrets of power

the book is in essence a job application we have here the prince a manuscript as you see is beautifully illuminated and he is dateable about 15/20 and he's in the handle will [the] [closet] friend of machiavelli be a giovanna court fee is one of the most eldest copy? absolutely ever and as you see here niccolã² machiavelli addressed his book to rent the magnificent and

here you have no title so the book is without title the [prince] of the titles the editors gave the book when the book was actually published five years after the death of machiavelli. this is another fascinating detail of this book so the prince wasn't actually called the print and there are more [surprises] - well the first thing you notice if you pick up the print is it's an extremely short book it runs to only 90 pages it's a book really about two things one is how to gain power?

and that's what the first half of the book is about, but the rest of the book and the real interest for machiavelli [of] why he wrote it is how do you hold on [to] power once you've got it. [i]? find it more fitting [to] seek the truth of the matter rather than imaginary conceptions because how one lives and how one ought to live are so far apart? but the ruler who persists in doing what ought to be done will undermine his power he says i am trying to write something useful looting it and so what i say in this book departs massively the italian says massive it departs massively and what anyone has ever written on this subject so [he] knows that it's a revolutionary book the intent of the book was to be a guide a kind of handbook for

politically ambitious leaders you can play the game for good or you can play it for ill for machiavelli it's more important to play the game well than to be morally good chapter 18 of the need for [princes] to keep their what? everybody knows how commendable it is for a ruler to keep his word and live by integrity rather than by cunning and yet experience shows us that rulers with little regard for their world have achieved great [things] being expert at beguiling men's minds the first generation would open this book that they came to chapter 18 and read it

they would have been astounded by [this] in roman law there is a maxim which says good faith must always be kept you must always keep your promises fides six-cylinder and that chapter was i think the one that gave it its most sinister reputation a prince must be a fox to spot the snares and alive to overwhelm the wolves those who [lie] merely upon the lions strength do not understand this? therefore a prudent ruler cannot keep his word nor should he when it would be to his disadvantage to do so if all men were good this rule would not stand, but as men are wicked and not prepared to keep their word [to] you you have no need to keep your word to them [i]?

knew very well the nature of human being and how they they behaved or not behaved? so if the man who is used to be in the world? those best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best but foxiness should be well concealed or must be a great thinner and dissembler a deceiver will always find someone willing to be deceived what's interesting about the book it's a bit like it says we've inherited an idea about human nature from christianity and classical humanism

and this idea of human nature is encouraging us to be good and what [machiavelli] is saying is what about if we thought differently about this? what about if we thought that vices and virtues were things you could use? to survive if a ruler who wants always to act honorably surrounded by many unscrupulous men his downfall is inevitable therefore it is necessary for a ruler who wishes to maintain his position to learn how to be able not [to] be good to any christian reader of machiavelli at the time they're going to say but you're forgetting the day of judgment on a day of judgment all your sins will be revealed and you will very much wish that you hadn't behaved like that now machiavelli pays

no attention to that. that's a huge silence in the book. it's just not there as a consideration the book is predicated on the assumption that the idea that your sins will find you out is a childish superstition they will not hand you out machiavelli is saying something [very] simple images these are wonderful pictures, but they've got nothing to do with reality it's also if you're good, you'll be rewarded some deal actually it does matter whether you're good or bad in terms of it doesn't predict anything so what machiavelli is saying in contemporary languages? we need to get real? this is jonathan powell he used to be tony blair's chief of staff now he's written a memoir called the new machiavelli how to wield power in the modern world

the choice of [advisers] is very important for a prince we're going to sense their princes intelligence by looking at the men with whom he surrounds himself so i'm kind of asking myself. why you called your book the new machiavelli, i mean what made you do that because a lot of people might have thought that with the term of abuse well, i wanted to write a book that was actually useful to people who are in government. [there] are an awful lot of books of theory constitutional books most of which are completely useless because they describe the way things should [be] rather than the way things are what's great about machiavelli is he writes about reality she buckles nick to capture all of that the word machiavellian was used

358 times by the newspapers in the first year of tony blair's reign somewhere in them there's a connection there [are] quite a lot of factors about machiavelli which are ones that many politicians would not want to own up to for instance chapter [13] it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain its position to learn how to be able not to be good machiavelli was saying not the princes should go around being evil what he was saying is you have to check your personal morality at the door when you become a leader? personal morality is all very well as an individual but if you are thinking about the greater good of the community

sometimes you'll have to do things that are not good as an individual but a good for society as a whole [a] prince must therefore be a fuck to spot the flair of a lion to overwhelm the wall this is one of machiavelli's most interesting lessons must be a line a courageous person, but you also to be a box and have intelligence and the guile to avoid traps there's an example for a tony blair when he was running in a 2005 election penny blair decided he had to make a speech on immigration tony blair [could] controlled on immigration had already had a positive effect when he finished i said so my notice the teleprompter had gone wrong because

large parts of the speech you were looking down at your notes as opposed to looking at camera. what what happened? so there's nothing wrong with the teleprompter just certain bits of the speech. i didn't want shown on television so i made sure i was looking at my notes. so those bits wouldn't be used by the television news that was the fox bit [good] [kenny] blair [will] talk about that. he ever really i've no idea if you read it. he certainly never talked about it thank you might be slightly horrified to be thought of as a machiavellian leader, but i mean it as a compliment [robert] [greene] has also been bringing the prints into the modern world he used to work in [hollywood] now he writes bestsellers like the 48 [laws] of power the traditional way of looking at politics is veiled with all of these concepts of what's good for the public of the politicians intentions of being [altruistic] and generous and what machiavelli did is take all of that away?

look at power as it is watch the moves of the various people on the [chessboard] so it's pure strategy, and it was absolutely brilliant. he's the first person to ever come up with that concept there are different types of political leaders there are the types who come into office with high ideals? they want to change things they want to reform [they] believe that they're [doing] something for the good of the public and then they [realize] [very] quickly that it politics is warfare, and they have to adapt to this environment and leaders like that perhaps obama would fit into that category can do very well if they're adaptable then you have other types like a bill clinton perhaps a tony blair or if you're angela merkel? these are more political animals by nature. they're very machiavellian. it's in their [dna] they don't need to read the prints they understand how the laws of power operate

so if you're in a position of power you have to play a game the dynamic doesn't matter whether it's a dictatorship or a democracy what the cleanse is in the sense is a portrayal of the attributes and qualities that you need to take the power that you have and develop that power in a way that is most useful to you and what you are trying to do well that is the case today for barack obama today for angela merkel david cameron and all the rest of them, that's that's partly what they're about because we can be very

squeamish about this if the world, but the truth is power is it is a force money is the mcmansion in sarasota that starts falling apart after ten years power is the old stone building that sustains for centuries [i]? cannot respect someone don't see the difference the allure of power is a big theme in drama at the moment in the hit series house of cards kevin spacey plays the machiavellian senator frank underwood it's a remake of the earlier series starring ian

richardson as francis urquhart written by margaret thatcher's chief of staff michael dobbs there's a dramatic thread that runs all the way from machiavelli through richard the third through francis urquhart and frank underwood just talking to you letting you in on the secrets of power i think you can achieve anything [you] wanted you might think that mattie i'm afraid i couldn't possibly comment and you think that this is this is this is wonderful. you're being trusted. you're being made a co-conspirator i'm terribly sorry thank you, francis

you're a good man the tory party in the 1987-88 period when just before margaret thatcher was pushed out which was when i wrote house of cards it was like florence under the borgias i mean it was full of conspiracy and dark corners and people whispering wicked things so it wasn't so much that i must write something which is machiavellian that i had i think lived through a time. i was living through a time which i think machiavelli himself would have recognized i think [that] this particular book a buying goes back to my university days, and it stayed with me ever since it's a wonderful book for dipping into is actually saying this is the way you do it, and you could be the most principled politician on the earth

[that] unless you get your fingers on power and know how to pull those levers you're wasting a time the centuries the prince has been inspiring the powerful and the tyrannical napoleon read it so did stalin. he made notes in the margin muscley knee even did his dissertation on it. it's always been the book of choice for political operators it's true [that] the prince was the favored bedside reading of henry kissinger and nixon and for a good reason because they were hard-nosed political realists and

part of the fascination of the prince is that it shows us. what the world looks like? when the ethical dimensions have been removed from the picture and i think for someone like henry kissinger or nixon there were a certain pleasure in reading a book that looked at the world [the] same way they did and the same way many other people, too machiavelli is perhaps most famous for the phrase the end justifies the means actually he never said it, but he may as well exam the exact thought that there in the prints is the action is accused and the outcome excuses it so in the italian, it's very [beautiful] it's a [cassata] and screws after it accuses you

but it excuses you so you're excused [if] the motivation for the action was the good of a state we have to do justice to much fl because it's not the matter of personal career or for for justice. [don't] fake is also for a political purpose he was really convinced that the stability of government in florence was the most important thing [to] do for the sake of the common good. you have to act in a bad manner just sometimes

but if you have to do something, which [is] really terrible then you have to recognize that it's really terrible but you still have to do it. i want them dead mother and child both and that fool viserys as well is that plain enough for you? i want them both dead yogasana yourself forever if you do this, [ona] [seven] [kingdoms] [cyril] it's tough to be ruler whether in machiavelli's time or today george are martin understands the burden of command. this is your chair my throne

he's the best-selling author behind the tv series game of thrones set in an imaginary world of warring kingdoms game of thrones is a fantasy of course. [i] think a lot of the fantasy they've gone before me has this unspoken assumption that if you are a good man? you will be a good king or a good prince but if you look at the real world if you look at real history or if you look at contemporary times it's not enough just to be a good guy. you know i read the prints of back in college which was of [course] many years ago and obviously absorbed quite a few of its lessons

it is a terrible thing we must consider a vile thing yet we who presume to rule must sometimes do vile things for the good of the realm? it's not enough just say i will be good and wise and do the right thing. what is the right thing? that's the question don't be evil that's what google says is the right thing but isn't it precisely these? [user-friendly] global corporations, but of the modern-day machiavellian

corporatism presents a much more pleasant face to the world, but in a sense it may be even more machiavellian because it's you know it's smiling at us is it the mind i don't know is it behind but it's certainly subtle the motto of google is don't be evil but don't look at the words look at their actions the data they're gathering on individuals the global presence they have but in order to exercise power in the world you have to give the appearance of being nice and good if you look to [be] too ambitious for power people are going to see that they're not going to like it the public wants to feel that you are motivated by some higher aspiration

so you have to manage appearances and all of these companies play the game like that the mission of the company is to make the world more open and connected you know everyone is going to have a much better experience when they're doing different things with their friends when one sees him a ruler must be a paragon of mercy loyalty humaneness integrity and scrupulousness indeed there's nothing more important than appearing to have this last quality for the common people are impressed by appearances and results machiavelli's the first person ever analyzed that phenomenon [i] think we're living through a period now that's remarkably similar to what machiavelli was living through and

it's not just with global tech companies that appearances matter machiavelli's rule applies everywhere [not] least as robert greene found out in hollywood if you go into a meeting and you give off confidence like you could pull this off like you can see it all the way to the end that you know what you're doing you're going to go a lot further than somebody who might have a brilliant idea, but doesn't know how to pitch it as well i know for for example that i made that mistake recently in a meeting that we didn't exude that insane sense of exude confidence that we were going to you know get this project done so it's a realm of appearances basically

but for machiavelli no one who wants [to] succeed in the game of power can escape one key factor luck fortuna he calls it that capricious turn of the wheel by which the ambitious rise and fall and never more so than in politics what does it mean to be able to make your fortune? [''tis] to have the qualities that enable you to dominate luck? so how can you hope to dominate that well in the end you can't fortune is always more powerful than reason but there are qualities that enable you as the excellent american phrase puts it to get lucky but of course you could as a politician simply have an amazing stroke of luck which from which everything follows and tony blair would certainly be an example of that the body of john smith was carried in john smith who was leader of the opposition?

dies very suddenly in his mid-50s so blair becomes leader of the opposition at the age of 41 when he had no expectation of the leader dying in the [mid-fifties] people don't die in their mid fifties, but john smith did this morning? i'm announcing my [candidate] for the position [of] leader of the labour party now there's no successful politician who hasn't at [some] point had pure. good luck and tony blair's pure. good luck terrible thing to say, but was the death of john smith surely he would have won that election so he would have been prime minister, but instead it was blair. i knew donna broken i dare not

he had the fortuna he had the luck and he grabbed it he had the opportunity become leader of the labour party when john smith died and he grabbed it and he made something of it so i think he was a classically machiavellian leader in that point of view for machiavelli the flipside fortuna is about - he doesn't mean virtue of course he means a kind of virtuosity in latin the words what a man is near the source of our word virile. it's this principle of manliness of courage of prudence of knowing how to master fortune so that's what we have to is because if you can master fortune you can maintain your state and thereby gain glory this raises the question [of] whether it is better to be loved than feared

my reply is a moment light to be both but as it is difficult to combine love and fear it is far safer to be feared because it can be said [of] men they're ungrateful fickle liars and deceivers they shun danger they're greedy for profit he recommends fear over love of course he says it's better to be both, but if you have to choose between the two it's better to be feared

the bond of love is one that men break when it is to their advantage to do [so] but fear is strengthened by the dread of punishment it is always effective here is something that you can rely on as a very stable sort of emotional foundation to build your power machiavelli was all about power of [the] prince or of the state this is a remarkable moment in the prints because it's the only moment when he really generalizes about human nature he says most people are fickle you can't trust them they are going to do everything that is in their own interests and not in your interests so what would be the point of trying to bind them to you by affection? still simply shall you down the river. you've got to make them find

if one has to choose between them it is far safer to be feared than loved [maitreya] politicians now if you think about politicians you can be absolutely beloved of your party [neal] [connect] was beloved of the labour party every time you enter a prime [minister's] questioner was bashed to pieces by mrs. thatcher the whole [labour] [party] suffered with him, but he could never be elected because he didn't have that aspect of here mrs. thatcher was never much liked actually by her troops. she was feared and respected so she was [one] someone who is feared rather than loved machiavelli says the point is that being loved is a reciprocal relationship? the person [to] stop loving you whereas fear is one way [thing] they can't stop fearing you as long as you have the means to

make them fear through it all the fear point is really really important when the leader goes into a gathering there has to be a sense that that person is the main event in that room at that time now they can emulate all sorts of charm and niceness and all the rest of it but as you know look at what happens within our political system in the run-up to reshuffle [i] can remember the very first time he did a reshuffle? i mean he wasn't quite physically sick, but he wasn't far [off] it. he just absolutely hated it

he definitely got tougher as time went on out 20 hours clark after so many bad headlines replaced [coming] the last reshuffle that i was as we were directly involved in once he'd done the big beast and done them all face to face he could have had a list of people who? did by phone and it was pretty swift about as well look you probably heard. i'm doing a reshuffle, and i'm afraid i'm gonna have to ask [your] [job]. you need to make some changes and well there, we are but is it useful that [they] feel fact if you saw that [i] think if leaders are being really really honest about it i think i think that is going to easier times

the ruler needs to be able to intimidate [people] for a lack of a better word it needs to be [able] in extreme cases like renaissance italy to execute his enemies in modern times will be more to fire people for machiavelli not even the most loyal servant should be spared if you have to get rid of them to maintain power then they must go that's it to be feared than loved [i] would say that to be feared is far better than to be loved there has to be between an employer and employee a tiny little bit fear but i certainly don't need to be loved by anybody in business these are the dragon five of britain's wealthiest and most enterprising business leaders

multi-millionaire businesswoman and former dragon hillary duvet first read the prince when she was at school 16th century political analysis may have felt like a chore, but it certainly left its mark let's face it for a [fifteen-year-old] even even for a bit [darrell] is heavy going it's a hard read and because it's very thought-provoking [which] is what it's meant to be. i think i can bring go up to the party have a lot of access into major retailers so i'll offer you the full 70,000 but i'd like 20% if you actually watch dragons den it couldn't be more and machiavellian if it tried

and if you look at each one of the dragons every single one of them have something machiavellian about them i'll offer you 70,000 pounds for 10% of the company i simply couldn't believe how machiavellian they were and it took me a little while perhaps a month six weeks to finally understand what they've got the strategy what the game plan was and once i did of course i joined in and i became one [of] them only hillary [dabei] remains will she see an opportunity where her rivals have not if i was to offer you the 50,000 pound for [95] percent of your company what would you say i?

think it is an important book and i think his principles the same principles as mine in a way where i say you know the only difference between me and machiavelli is that i make a commercial decision, and i will take whatever amount of compassion is required out of that commercial decision but what i will then do is put compassion back in so i'm having to do this because x y zed now, how can i help you? chapter [xix] how to avoid contempt and hatred princeton's must delegate difficult tasks to others and keep popular ones for themselves the prince must never be hated if [you're] hated

then you will lose your state because there'll be some good reason why the people hate you and they weren't tolerated now how can you avoid being hated if terrible things have to be done? well one of machiavelli's pieces of advice is to say you must appoint a deputy and you must get him to do the dirty work to make his point machiavelli tells a story about cesare, borgia. we think of [borja] as a bloodthirsty monster [tamaki] valley he was a hero the story begins inches anna in the romagna district of italy [borja] wants to take over the area so he [send] in his minister romero [darko] a man with a ruthless reputation

laura sends him into the romagna to pacify it. he does so by means of unspeakable cruelty and there is a threat of a rising borgia was aware that dorko had created hatred among the people and in order to win them over he decided [to] make it clear that if they had [granite] cruelty it had been triggered by dorko, not him and so what happens is machiavelli says in a wonderful level piece of prose he says that one morning ramiro - [our] cook was found in the square of cocina in two pieces he had dorko placed in two pieces with a block of wood and a blood-stained knife by his side this terrible spectacle left the people both satisfied and stupefied to me they thought wow well he could do anything

the hated figure was gone [borja] was in no way to blame so always put a second-in-command to do your dirty work putting that dismembered body on a block it. what is that? it's not only [just] saying that i executed that man, but it's almost like a ritual murder almost [mafia-like], and it's there to inspire awe and respect and admiration for the man who did it to see? a leader who's not only killed [him] but put him there so everyone could [see] as a lesson [my] god it has you know a triple effect on public opinion political leaders have been using the strategy for centuries without the blood so

fdr. had his henchmen clinton had his henchmen tony blair had cameron has [osborn] on and on and on and on you've got somebody there to do the dirty work and then you can distance yourself from them, so this sort of violent example is actually something that goes on every day around us maybe that's why the prince feels so contemporary the rules of piracy are just as applicable today as they were 500 years ago originally a manual for the medici the prince could just as easily be a modern self-help book we tend to think of power only in terms of politics or [business] but really this power to control your destiny your life how you are in your office [if] you have no control over your career?

if you have no influence over your colleagues or peers or your boss it's the most miserable feeling in the world and nobody wants that kind of position in life so everybody is scrambling to get more power more control over their individual destiny you know i taught college once at a tiny little a tiny little catholic girls college in dubuque, iowa and the power struggles on an academic level at this little thing [were] as vicious as anything in medieval florence of who will get to be department chairman and wield that vast power? it's all in the context of what you're in it's sort of like once you enter the boxing ring. you have to fight

you can't sit there and just lie down you're going to get beaten up so once you're there you have to figure out a strategy if you don't want to get hit you have to at least figure out how to avoid getting hit so there's no way to opt out but a lot of people are [uncomfortable] with it, and they play a kind of a negative game of power they say that they find power ugly and disgusting and power people or you know anti-social etc the ones that say they're not interested in power are often the most dangerous types [i] would say that the prince is more relevant now than in almost ever has been and that he was ahead of his [time]

he was 500 years ahead of his time and that this book is absolutely the perfect template for how to survive and thrive in the world that's coming up using the prints that a guide to warfare may sound a bit extreme, but that's exactly what colonel tim collins did when he was in iraq? collins is famous for the rousing speech he made on the eve of battle later recreated in a short film starring kenneth branagh there are some [her] alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly those of them who do not wish [to] go on that journey. we will not send them as for the others what is less known is it while he was in iraq?

collins kept a copy of the prints with him at all times [in] iraq i kept dipping into it. i carried around in my [matt] pocket, and i would take it out and read [it]. i would study to find out what it was he was specifically saying about what will cause populations to hit you because here's the headline news what would have got you here at five hundred years ago is what's going to get you hidden today? so it's worth studying it to see what it is. he's saying this is the book. i had with me in iraq and it's pretty fragile now because it literally has been through the wars the sand still falls over if you read machiavelli you realize what in the end of the day what you've got to do is the right thing

so if you're in an occupied village we could organize a football match and give out bars of soap or we could have a curfew and tell you the first person i catch with a weapon is a dead man and i want all weapons handed in tomorrow and after that i need be caught with one as a dead man and then get all the weapons handed then once all the weapons are out of the way and they fear your very shadow then we can hope football match and do you think as a manual that this had lessons for you absolutely? i mean he is spot-on throughout, and i think that all he's saying ultimately is for good or for ill this is what works? so in that business. i think he's a good guy

what he described was what he saw, and he did it so accurately here. we are centuries later still reading it and still observing it in our everyday lives chapter [three], it should be observed here that men should either be caressed or crushed because they can avenge slight injuries, but not those that are very severe what machiavelli would say is that if you decide to do something you go through with it to the end and that means? not to spatter your enemy to crush your enemy [cousin] [deceased] [exist] that way you're certain it can be no come [back] on you, or your people the crush your enemy dynamic is something that machiavelli discovered as a law of power and it's timeless and it exists in warfare, and it totally exists in business

the classic example [was] the war between microsoft and netscape in the 1990s in which netscape was one of the hottest things around and microsoft's completely crushed netscape it doesn't exist anymore internet wars microsoft versus netscape goliath text on david you find the same thing with google every time there's a possible competitor. they go out and buy them out like youtube etc [boohoo] as you look at it with amazon on and on down the line. it's the dynamic in business where you need to consume the various rivals in your path?

it can be said [of] men, but they're ungrateful fickle liars and deceivers they shun danger and a greedy for profit [i] keep coming back to these lines from the prints if it's what people are really like are we all ungrateful fickle liars and deceivers the machiavelli test is an attempt to answer that it was developed by psychologists in the 1960s 20 questions tap into our machiavellian instincts you end up with a score that tells you whether you're a high mac or a low mac now this is something i can't resist [alan] in this test there are 20 statements

i want you to indicate the extent to which you agree [or] disagree with each statement i want you to answer each question as truthfully as you can answer one if you strongly disagree with a statement - if you disagree three if you are neutral four if you agree, and five if you strongly agree okay number one, never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless that is useful to do so - the best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear three it is hard to get ahead without cutting corners?

four it is wise to flatter and for some people for since its conception they've been around 1400 studies that have used the machiavelli test. so what did the results tell us? one of the most consistent violence to come out of those studies is that men are more machiavellian and women? not by a great deal, but they come out consistently more machiavellian than women machiavellianism tends to peak [in] adolescence and another interesting finding to come from the study is that it doesn't matter what your political orientation? is that is right lenders and left-wing is? don't differ on machiavellian is always you might tend to think that perhaps white lenders are a little bit more machiavellian. they're not so, how did i do?

well alan i suppose. it's good news you came out with a mean score of two point nine five on these questions which means that you're neutral or just [tended] to disagree with the machiavellian questions, it makes it somewhat less machiavellian did the average person? but if i were truly machiavellian i would probably be lying one [time] you probably would in this setting [because] you're filming a documentary and your responses are going out of the nation but if you were in an anonymous treatment i'm still not sure what to [make] of machiavelli is the prince emmanuel protaras? devoid of all morality this [is] a realistic guide to life is machiavelli a goodie or a bad?

and it seems to me that he holds a place of a kind of cultural icon he's a baddie whereas actually the book is about the exposure of the nature of badness and goodness it says we need to think of morality as a toolkit vices and virtues are artifacts we've invented to survive is it a sort of a realistic [view] of human nature and lots of human nature? but the journey that we all have to make well yet it could be but it could be a realistic view of human nature after you've lost belief in love and kindness but you could put it the other way around and think that what's being said is if virtue isn't necessarily rewarded why be virtuous? which is a good question and the answer would be something like well virtue is [a--] is good in and of itself

it's best to be kind in to be cruel not because you'll do better in life, but because it's best we can to be cruel i'm keen on the sort that maki that it is a moralist [he's] just not a kind of moralist whom i admire he is someone who thinks that the quality of your actions is to be judged in terms of their consequences? and that allows him this great leeway for saying well, you know it's necessary for the goal which is a good one for you to do evil and don't worry about the fact that you have done something which is unjust if you are certain that if you didn't do it it would have affected the security in the well-being of the state because your job is to maintain that and the point is you've got to maintain that whatever happens. that's the horrible thing about machiavelli. i mean let's be clear

this is i think a horrible book i mean it's a horrible book because it says you know don't worry about the virtues just worry about consequences [your] job is to keep people secure do whatever is necessary [well] if you think about the implications of that they're pretty appalling [i] also think there's a despair in this because the fundamental despair in it is the assumption that people don't want to collaborate with each other, but people don't want to look after each other so it's a bit like you could imagine it also as a book written in the aftermath of a trauma and in a way of course he was imprisoned, so there was a trauma you could think machiavelli is very disillusioned about a lot of things so it's a bit like he's saying

once you lose heart once you lose belief in human goodness and collaboration kindness and love this is what the world's going to look like and more and more of us are going to have experiences in which we feel disillusioned. so we need to wise up to this this is tupac shakur. he'd been a huge fan of machiavelli before he was gunned down in 1996 when he was in prison [he] studied the prince and when he got out he changed his name to makaveli and made videos like this more recently the rapper 50 cent wrote a book with robert greene called the 50th [law] a machiavellian bible for success based on the single principle fear nothing

there is not a single or machiavellian environment in the music industry on this planet. it makes it makes hollywood look like kindergarten it is ruthless it's the game of thrones times 5 and so someone like 50 he said it helped him it helped them negotiate this shark-infested environment power is is a neutral term it can be used for bad and it can be used for good. it's like a tool i got the energy to win. i'm full of adrenaline play the courage and get notes what you gonna spin i make plans to make it a prisoner state not apart from 2pac and 50 cent who else these days measures up to machiavelli who?

would machiavelli approve of a lot of what machiavelli is about is about being strategic about trying to think in a [longer-term] frame so you think about someone like alex ferguson at manchester united. he is clearly a strategic manager he wasn't trying to think about the next match he was thinking on a much longer time frame, so i think someone like that again would be an unconscious machiavellian i would say that the most person certainly in my lifetime that i would resemble to machiavelli would be margaret thatcher

she certainly wasn't loved by a cabinet, but she was certainly feared either you looking for a very good example of an institution [that] as [applied] well some of the lessons and the principles in the prince you'll find them in the royal family i mean there was a period when actually the sense of the royal brand if you like was becoming quite negative while i've seen that [of] big [time] and i think they've seen off in part by operating some of these timeless principles that are set out [in] the [prince], but in a very modern context the prince may anticipate a world five centuries into the future

but what happened to the book itself? it was published in 1532 and not surprisingly the pope banned it the papal index is set up in 1559 is simply an alphabetical list of books which you mustn't read and they're mostly lutheran and calvinist books works of deep heresy according to the catholic church, but some secular writers are in there and nicholas machiavelli is in there under the heading all his works are totally banned but that didn't stop the prince from reaching england and cementing [niccolã²] machiavelli reputation as old nick the devil england was the country that really played the biggest role in spreading this idea that this man was satanic

shakespeare doesn't exactly help as machiavelli's name is invoked by [the] scheming duke of gloucester the future richard the third [i] can add colors [to] the camera change shapes with proteus for advantages and set the murderous machiavel to school we may have inherited this idea of machiavelli as the devil, but that's not what the italians think in florence his statue stands outside you feet see alongside the italian grapes the prince is even a set text in schools machiavelli my serenity assassin [grande] are they so grand assaulting oh, [angelica] [stenography]? [she] rarely [goes] we go myself if you think for instance that is one of the three italian books translated all over the world in almost all language in the world and the other ones are

done tears of forest comedy of dante and pinocchio by [khiladi], so the [prince] pinocchio and dante the three most translated book this is something that you know and there's another reason why machiavelli is admired ultimately he was in favor of republic's rather than inherited rule he distinguishes between all [prince] and a new prince all prisoners of people who've inherited their [position] then there's the new prince who rises from the bottom he's completely on the side [of] the new print because he believes that the new prince can only rise to the top with their own energy now one of the interesting things about the princess. it's got an irony attached to it

it's saying if you want to hold on to power this is how to behave, but we can all read it so it's a book about trickery which exposes the tricks here are some different relations of the [prince] we really received from the many visitors come in here. we have friends of brand republic attacker in the region from oslo in german korean russian a doctor from mr.. ellison disease chinese this we received from belgrade oh paul nice japanese finnish

turkish argentine norwegian and english of course and the disease where he planned his phineas is holly trees is property today machiavelli's house is owned by a wine company and across the road you can order a chianti from machiavelli's vineyard here's to the prince, okay? now tell me who do many people come here to [visit] the home of machiavelli yes from all over the [world] many years ago came my tony [blair] i would so really remus. where did he go?

he came [by] in 1998 so just a year after he came into power. yeah mm-hmm what did you take him round the house see and we went around and we gave him of course they copy of the printer? did you really yeah [and] in italian or in english in italian? but what happened to machiavelli himself? the whole point of writing the prince was to get noticed by the most powerful man in florence, but machiavelli totally tailed as far as we know lorenzo the magnificent never even read it and machiavelli, never got his job back

he ended up here on his estate drinking wine and writing books and played in many ways machiavelli was a failure because he gave advice that other people could never be seen to be taking it may all have been very useful to other people but the last thing they could do according to his own tenets in the book it showed that they were taking his advice the biggest irony in this whole story if that machiavelli himself it appeared to be in the least bit machiavellian in a letter to a friend machiavelli once wrote

when evening comes i go back home. [i] take off my work clothes and put on the clothes of an ambassador i enter the ancient [courts] of rulers i forget every worry. i'm no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death [i] live entirely through them machiavelli died in 1527 at the age of 58 five years before the prince was published little did he know that [500] years later what he called his little pamphlet would remain one of the most influential books ever written makaveli to [door] to the door. i'm painting for army a lunatic to stay home [today]. [i] got [allen] [allen]

it about bbc actually that's a machiavellian institution you may think that i [got] my life in exchange your help [in] [guatemala] [kinder] [i] got a second job

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