Machiavelli and Marx - Essay Example

The realistic approach to the knowledge of past and contemporary political life and the principle of unity of theory and practice were defended by the younger contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, a prominent historian and reformer of Science of the State Niccolo Machiavelli. He offered his own philosophy of history, or rather political history, by rejecting a theological providentialism. At the time when Italy was politically impotent, fragmented and lost its independence, Machiavelli suggested a new type of strong personality, self-confident, ideal leader.

According to Machiavelli, it is a purposeful, violent man, with unbending will, possessing talent, intelligence, cunning and even treachery. All of the states (Machiavelli was the first to introduce the concept of the state. By this term he understood both the form of government and a territory) were divided into republics (the best forms of government), and the licenses (the worst type.) Machiavelli clearly revealed his republican beliefs in his last major work "The History of Florence”, which brought him fame of outstanding historian.

Machiavelli's views on the historical process were inherent in the idea of cyclic ??recurrence, regular change of government forms. In his opinion, not abstract theoretical calculations, but the real historical experience reveals certain rules and principles of alternation of these forms. The monarchy, as he shows by many examples, is replaced by an oligarchy, oligarchy - by a republic, which, in turn, gives way to a one-man rule; “this is the series of state evolution” (Baron, 1961). The society struggle of contradictions, interests, conflicts of small and large groups is at the heart of this cyclic recurrence.

Karl Marx is one of the founders of the materialist conception of history. His philosophical conception of society has much in common with that of Machiavelli. But, nonetheless, the period, separating these two ideologies, is impressive. So, The Marxist doctrine of the state includes both philosophical and sociological views. He believed that any state should eventually die off. This process is considered as absolutely unavoidable. The state is the result of division of society into antagonistic classes.

“Classes are large groups of people with different interests, which differ in their relation to the means of production. With the emergence of the state a constant class struggle in society appears. The state is a product and manifestation of the intransigence of class antagonisms. The state arises where and when class antagonisms objectively can not be reconciled. In turn, the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2010).

Machiavelli’s realism also had class character. But it expressed the sequence of requirements of the rising class, the revolutionary aspirations of the bourgeoisie. His ideal ruler is the most uncompromising and strong new alternative of the bourgeois system to the public and political feudalism. Machiavelli never assumed the existence of classless society (1998). Machiavelli was the first philosopher, who began talking about the economy of the state as a part of its prosperity. According to Marx, economic dominates the state.

A confrontation within the state is led by two classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie is the ruling class,