Compare And Contrast Machiavelli And Lao Tzu

Throughout history people have had their own perspective about government and how much power it should hold. While some people believe in the saying “power to the people” and that government should play little to no role in the lives of society other’s believe all the power should be given to one specific person like a dictator. With these different beliefs, there is also those people who stand in the middle agreeing that the government should play big roles in society but the people should have just as much say as the government. After analyzing different authors views on government such as Machiavelli, Thomas Jefferson, and Lao Tzu it is clear that each have strong separate belief’s. As each of their political views are understandable and …show more content…
Machiavelli is for a strong central government with all the power being in the hands of the leader. Lao Tzu believes that there should be little to no governing at all and that the people should not go against the natural order of the universe, living how they are meant to not how someone tells them too. A man named Thomas Jefferson though stands right in the middle of both Machiavelli and Lao Tzu. Being one of the writers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stood for power to the people but with a government structure. He wanted to have a strong government but that government should be in favor of human rights. This government would listen to the people, help maintain natural rights and defeat anything that tried to take away these rights. Government should be put in place only to secure the rights of all man kind and never to pose any threat towards the rights of humans. If any type of government does go against independence and freedom, the people under that threatening government are allowed to abolish it and replace it with a new form of government. A famous line “that all men are created equal” is the start to the reasoning of becoming an independent state with a “for the people”