Lao-Tzu Vs Machiavelli

Words: 1035
Pages: 5

***** Machiavelli believes that the rules that govern the conduct of a leader towards friends, as well as subjects, are of utmost importance. The majority of leaders tend to picture principalities, as well as republics that they have never seen or known. The manner in which people live is distant from the way that they must live. That is to say, people who aspire to entirely act according to their virtue professions soon meet what destroys them. Therefore, it is vital for leaders who wish to hold their own to be aware how to commit wrongs, as well as to apply them in accordance to necessity. The qualities that leaders exhibit brings them praise or blame: one can be reputed miserly another liberal; generous or rapacious (??).
Machiavelli further
…show more content…
According to Machiavelli, a prince should not worry about being called a miser because he can save his income to use on war and prevent his people from having to pay excessive taxes. He thought being only generous would result in running out of money, but he suggested to show generosity when a prince must control the property of others. Lao Tzu is quite different. If the Master is wealthy, his people would suffer from poverty and robbery. When compared to Machiavelli, Lao-Tzu's views are quite different, he believes that there exists an ideal way that a ruler can use to govern a country. The government of any given country ought to have minimum involvement in its people's lives. This is because virtues tend to come naturally to people in instances when they desert their endeavors to seek formally these values and their desires. On the other hand, rulers ought to be humble and tolerant by taking care of the needs of their people and focusing in matters that are affecting the country rather than snooping on other countries. A ruler who is ideal should try to avoid any kind of war with other countries. The minimal government concept by Lao-Tzu can be considered to be reasonable to some extent. For instance, Lao-Tzu states: "If you don't trust the people, you make them untrustworthy". This statement exemplifies the theory of labeling. When people get labeled by the society as being defiant in respect to their major wrongdoing, they tend to become more probable to be conventional to such a role and