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Essay / Compare and Contrast John Locke and Machiavelli
Machiavelli focused more on the political power of the country, while John Locke focused more on the rights of the people. Is this true? I said they both had the same goal of looking out for the best in the state, but Locke was much less extreme and focused more on the rights of his people. Despite their contradictions over “sovereignty,” John Locke and Niccolo Machiavelli shared one obvious concern: their concern for the betterment of society. It is evident that both philosophers had common ways of thinking regarding what a leader should and should not do. It is the question of “how” a leader should behave to win the sovereignty of his state that has led to a difference of opinion. Both Machiavelli and Locke examined the nature of government and the individual interests of man as they relate to governmental structures. Machievelli's idea of fortune and Locke's concept of the "state of nature" both shaped theorists' arguments about the purpose of political life. It has been argued that for Machiavelli, politics is an unpredictable domain in which ambition, deception and violence render the idea of the common good meaningless, while Locke would argue that political or civil society only exists to preserve the rights of the individual. We can affirm that, for Machiavelli as for Lock, political activity then becomes simply a means of satisfying selfish interests.