Chapter 16: Managing the Expectation of Benefits

In chapter XVI in ‘The Prince’: ‘Of liberality and parsimoniousness’ Machiavelli a.o. states that it would be good for a prince to be deemed liberal; and yet liberality, practiced in such way that you will no longer be feared, will prove injurious. For liberality worthily exercised, which it should be, will not be recognized and therefore may be reproach of the very opposite. For if you desire the reputation of being liberal, you must not stop at any degree of sumptuousness, so that a prince will in this way generally consume his entire substance, and may in the end, if he wishes to keep up his reputation for liberality, be obliged to subject his people to extraordinary burdens, and resort to taxation, and employ all sorts of measures to procure money.

To what extent do Machiavelli’s thoughts apply to the roles and responsibilities of modern leaders from different countries, cultures and trades? Is it in the nature of mankind to always want more? How should we manage the expectation of benefits?

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Participants:
  Jørgen Vig Knudstorp
  John Dunn
  Stan Shih
  Lynda Curtis
  Jim Buckmaster
  Bruce Cohen