Blog 1: Lao Tzu vs Machiavelli

     Lao Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli's views on government greatly differ. Lao Tzu's

 government ideals were to minimize the power of given to the higher authorities and if one needed

 something to be enforced then it would be done quietly and calmly. He believed that, in government, one

 should follow the guidelines of the Tao-Te Ching. His ideals differ completely from those surrounding a 

"materialist quest for power, authority, and wealth." 


In high contradiction, Niccolo Machiavelli's believed that a government should make it a priority to secure

 power by any and all means possible. Machiavelli thought it to be okay to do anything necessary in order 

to achieve what a government or leader desires, even if that is achieved by a result of torture or 

oppression. 


 Lao Tzu believed that the purpose of government was to allow the people to have great freedoms and fray

 from taking control of others lives.On the other hand, Machiavelli believed that the purpose of 

government was to establish fear into the people in order to gain respect and obedience towards the law. 

Machiavelli followed the saying that stated it is, "better to be widely feared than greatly loved.". Lao Tzu's

 obligations of a government are to create peace by judicial inaction while Machiavelli's obligations of a 

government are to take sometimes perishable actions towards anyone or anything as long as the 

government succeeds in its actions. Machiavelli discourages leaders to care about having respectable

 principles or high morals while Lao Tzu believes that it is a necessity to have such things. The only 

similarity to be found between Lao Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli is that both their views were extreme in

 the case that together they believed their ideals to be exact and infallible. 




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