Thoreau And Machiavelli Comparison

The world is an extremely complicated place, with issues constantly coming to the forefront, and it is imperative for society to address them. However, the answer is not always easy, and many theorists disagree with each other. This holds especially true for the philosophers Machiavelli and Thoreau. Machiavelli advocated a strong central government that protects its people with an undefeated army, even at the expense of giving up liberties. Contrarily, Thoreau emphasized justice, freedom, and empowerment of the individual. It is clear that Thoreau would disagree with Machiavelli's ideologies as they clash with his own. Machiavelli sought a powerful government whose primary goals are protection and honor, even if it meant robbing civil liberties. Machiavelli thought this way because of his assumption that people are generally not good. In The Prince, he states that, "[people] are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, [and] greedy for gain" (46). He thought that if left to their own accords, people would be up to no good, and thus need a government to watch over their actions. In his work, Machiavelli repeated values that he sought in a society, values, which he thought people could not embrace without a heavy-handed government. These values included faith, integrity, strength, and honor, among others. Due to …show more content…
Their views supporting either fascism or anarchy are so radically different.
Machiavelli supports the government to control people, unite them, make them feel a certain way, and accomplish tasks together. Thoreau seeks a government that takes a step back, enabling expression of the individual and unregulated innovation. The only idea that these two men would agree with each other on is that there are problems in the world that need to be addressed. Today there are more moderate approaches to dealing with the world's