Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is a break from the utopian forms of classical forms of social and political organization and focuses on how a new prince can achieve, maintain, expand and perpetuate power. Written in the time of tumult in city-state Italy it draws on the historical lessons from the present and the classical past to put forward a pragmatic and non-sentimental view of achieving political power.

From the modern eye it is pretty unremarkable read. The book is short, its empirical examples drawn from history fit the scientific worldview of literature that is expected, and its cynical tone and pragmatic voice is consistent with modern sensibilities. Given how many leaders from the classical era and medieval times were horrible despots capable if inhumane brutality I am not sure I understand why this text was such a break with the past. Maybe because intellectuals of the pre-renaissance era only published idealized politics and ignored the messiness of reality around them.

The book has some very famous passages. One of the question of whether the ruler should be loved or feared:

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.

Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.

And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

One of his recommendations stemming from this study of human nature and political power is; if the leader is going to act amorally, do it quickly and only act amorally against a few people or against a minority. Those that are unaffected will forget this transgression quickly due to inherit selfishness (it happened to someone else) and the leader will even be remembered for his liberality in limiting his arbitrary and amorality to a few and saving the many from those behaviors.

Another famous part of The Prince is the chapter on the temporality (fortune) of politics and how someone with a fixed, or rigid ideology may end up being ousted from political power quickly as their ideology is not the one required for ruling or governance.

It is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and that no one can even help them; and because of this they would have us believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let chance govern them.

This opinion has been more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion.

Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

Because he thinks nearly half of human affairs are based on chance, Machiavelli argues against a fixed ideology of governance and politics, instead requiring that at each and every moment the prince make pragmatic decisions based on the circumstances. This is an argument for an amoral form of governance and why Machiavellan politics comes into conflict with Liberalism that is founded on the morality of individual freedom and natural (universal) rights.

Changes in estate also issue from this, for if, to one who governs himself with caution and patience, times and affairs converge in such a way that his administration is successful, his fortune is made; but if times and affairs change, he is ruined if he does not change his course of action.

But a man is not often found sufficiently circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to, and also because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is well to leave it; and, therefore, the cautious man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his conduct with the times fortune would not have changed.

...

I conclude therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious ...

You could argue that Machiavelli's The Prince does have a fixed ideology; that of the advance pursuit and maintenance of political power. That there is not a universal guiding morality behind of human affairs or social organization such as Liberalism has.

More recently C. Bradley Thompson has identified Neoconservatism as being based on Straussian principles for social organization, and Machiavellian principles for political organization and governance. He argues that one of the reasons the guiding principles behind neo-conservatism is so difficult to determine is because they conduct their affairs in gaining political power through Machiavelli's views on fortune, chance and temporality.

As a consequence neo-conservatism political principles are changing constantly and range from the moral to the absurd without any reflection on hypocriticality. This may be why we see public figures such as Newt Gingrich, who has shown to be amoral in the conduct of his private affairs, argue in public forums for 'family values'. Thompson writes;

Strauss, Kristol and the neoconservatives very much believe that ordinary men and women desperately need a common, authoritative moral code by to live, but the particulars of which they are not so fussy. In fact, with regard to the man on the street, the neocons public ethics is formally contentless.

Morality for the neocons - the morality for this world and for ordinary men - is a social construction, one that will be different for each and every society. In this way, despite all their public rhetoric about 'timeless values' and ' permanent truths' the neoconservatives are moral and cultural relativists.

Under Straussian social organization the moral codes that the vulgar, or the people have, including animistic ones like religion are useful as the means for maintaining control and political strength. They have no intrinsic value outside of that. Which would upset a lot of very religious people. For neoconservatives in the United States, reacting pragmatically to a politically motivated evangelical demographic is a means to achieve power.

Thompson also writes that, for neoconservatism, this political pragmatism to react to events as they occur without a guiding political ideology such as Liberalism enables the Machiavellian Statesman to act in an amoral nature as long as it is for nationalism and perpetuation of national power which is another form of ensuring political and control and strength from the vulgar (majority).

According to Kristol's Straussian reading of Machiavelli, the Florentine philosopher puts this teaching in the service of a new kind of patriotism that serves the ... nation. According to Kristol, if the new statesman that he is promoting, 'cares dearly for his country, it does not matter what else he cares for.' In other words, love of the nation, and the need to defend it in any and all ways necessary trumps all other moral considerations.

This is why Kristol advocates injecting 'a strong dose of Machiavellian shrewdness' into conservative politics, and is also why he endorses the Machiavellian principle that 'it is right for political knowledge to be divorced from moral knowledge.'

You can see where some of the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration have come from after reading that paragraph. Under Liberalism, "America does not torture" because it is constrained by the morality of universal political rights. Under Straussian/Machiavellian noeconservatism America does torture because political action follows fortune and chance and is not tempered by any moral code or political constraint - not even legal or constitutional ones.

As an Australian Republican and Liberal that last sentence horrifies me as I believe there are universals in the human condition that are lines that cannot be crossed by government or the state if it is to remain legitimate.

But, that is what Machiavelli wrote as the means for maintaining political power as a monarchic despot in the 1500s. The world has changed since then, it is a shame that neoconservatism has resurrected that style of political governance as part of its doomsday anti-liberal philosophy of social and political organization.