Machiavelli in America traces the influence of the Florentine thinker on American politics, from the Founders (c. 1770s) through today’s rough-and-tumble political panorama.Machiavelli’s ideas have been re-interpreted internationally as ‘real-politik.’ He proposed that the ‘ends justify the means, ‘ and that any manner of fraud, violence or corruption must be utilized in attaining and retaining power. People, he assured us, are so mean, small and selfish that they will only act under necessity, so the successful prince must force the population, through whatever means necessary, to follow his dictates.He maintained that the most powerful form of fraud was the appearance of religiosity, and said that the successful prince must hold no art higher than that of war.The last section of the book offers a response to this kind of thinking, with a specific, implementable program that will begin to devolve the power of American democracy back to the people and away from the shrinking numbers of oligarchs who control the political system through Machiavellian means and vast amounts of money.
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