Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft and in the end have overcome those how have relied on their word.When we select a leader in modern days, we prize integrity. We want our leaders to be men and women of their word. But Machiavelli sees this a bit differently and I wonder if he is right to do so. If a modern President prized their integrity over the health of the state, we would think them dangerously foolish. If, say, a President made a handshake agreement with an opposing head of state and then later discovered that the agreement would lead to some danger, we would expect them to break that agreement.
Of course things are different now. If a Renaissance prince got a reputation for dishonesty, other leaders would be more wary of them. Here in the United States we switch up leaders every four or eight years. In some sense we continually wipe the slate blank. On the other hand, nations don't forget double crosses quickly, so maybe I have the math wrong on this one.
One other modern wrinkle is that a leader needs the reputation for integrity to actually gain leadership. If the people don't think that a leader will stay committed to their campaign promises, they won't be elected. And leaders will find the nuts and bolts of modern political machinery difficult if no one trusts them.
Still, after high office has been obtained, just how highly should we prize the desire to 'keep the faith'?
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