The Virtues of Being a Machiavellian: the Alternative to Representative Government
Disclaimer: this piece of writing in no way represents policy stances of The Regents of the University of California, and the branches of the Federal Government of the United States of America. All positions are solely opinions of the writer.
When I was in high school, I was enrolled in AP European History, a class that although seemed like endless hours and days of memorizing and categorizing dates, events of the past, and constant note-taking, would expose to me to one of the most fascinating political theorists of the time by the name of Niccolo Machiavelli.
Machiavelli was born during the height of the fifteenth century of the Italian Renaissance, an occupant of the Florentine Republic, an Italian City state in the present-day northwestern province of Tuscany. With such a rebirth of ideas and knowledge, along with the innovation of so many facets of culture and western civilization, thanks to this rediscovery of the past, led to many changes to the political atmosphere of southern Europe, and in specific, Italy.
Florence was ruled by the powerful Medici family, who just happened to not only be the de-facto heads of state of the city, but also were also among the most wealthy of bankers of the entire Western Hemisphere, having both financial and also…