America’s Prince

America’s government, since first conceived by the Founding Fathers, has been the

longest lasting government with the same constitution. Some people wonder how this is possible,

how America can still be a modern running country through several wars, two world wars, and a

Great Depression. The answer, though itself complex can be best simplified by the basis of the

foundation of America lying with the philosophy of Machiavelli and what the perfect Prince, or

ruler of a country, should do.

Now, Prince in a modern sense can be meant to mean the acting collective body that rules

a country through the form of government. America’s three pronged government with the

legislative, judicial and executive branch, can be best described as the Prince of America. This

Prince affects our daily lives through laws, taxes, and overall national defense. With the Prince

clearly defined, we can see America’s Prince as the best Prince according to Machiavelli as it

plays perfectly into the three main topics of Machiavelli’s beliefs: defense, common welfare, and

honesty.

According to Machiavelli, a Prince should not “take anything as his profession but war”

(Machiavelli). The first thing on a Prince’s mind should not be how to keep your country

defended, but how to have a good offense to be able to push back enemies and intimidate them.

According to Machiavelli, this is what America has. America’s Army and Navy are all used for

outside purposes in wars in foreign lands, never for a heavy defense patrolling the border.

Besides having a good offense, Machiavelli points out that the troops should not be mercenaries

and the troops should be controlled through fear. This is exactly what America accomplishes as

most of the troops are composed of American citizens trained for battle. They are also

intimidated to stay in the army and loyal to their country through the fact that if they are not, they
can be arrested and thrown in jail. Instead of America earning its respects from the troops, it does

what Machiavelli points out is the best course and forces respect through fear of the law.

Other then the US defense accomplishing Machiavelli’s goals, the welfare system of the

country accomplishes his other goals on generosity and “misery”. Machiavelli says that the best

welfare system of a country is based in the country not handing out too much money to the

people as this causes a debt in the money of the Prince and causes people have to be taxed more,

causing hate to brew across the country. This is what America accomplishes. Even though

America does hand out quite a bit of money to the welfare system, it doesn’t hand out the

volume it can. If it handed out more, indeed, America would probably have to tax more.

Interestingly enough, our country would accomplish this taxation in a different manner. Taxes

would be raised for the wealthier, causing the more common masses of the middle class and

below to have the same taxes and overall national feeling not to be as angry as first thought.

America then accomplishes the last goal of Machiavelli: honesty. According to

Machiavelli a Prince should be honest, but also be able to be slyly deceitful. A Prince needs to be

ready to deceive foreign powers, foreign citizens, and its own citizens. America does this

wonderfully through the use of the President. He is the Prince that accomplishes the goal of

slyness as he has to make promises to foreign countries that in cases, have been ignored, and he

has to make promises to US citizens, which in other cases haven been ignored too. The great

thing about these promises being undelivered is the fact that another issue comes up that off

tracks people’s mind about his current promise. This allows him to forget and move on.

The American Prince is one of the best current examples of Machiavelli’s Prince and

gives a clear example of the correctness of his prediction of the perfect Prince. America has

survived through the times through the clear effectiveness of the perfect Prince.
 Works Cited

Machiacelli, Niccolo. The Qualities of the Prince. <http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/dbrown/files/M

achiavelli%20-%20Prince_1.pdf> (1 January 2010).