Socrates and Machiavelli both aspire to the same goal: to achieve certain political goals. Machiavelli, in The Prince, speaks of his desire to end political conflict through the institution of order while Socrates, as described by Plato, apparently wishes for the government of his time to be replaced by a more just system. Although the two historical figures are both highly relevant when it comes to the concepts of power and how to achieve it, they are polar opposites when it comes to the means by which they hope to achieve their personal goals. In The Prince, Machiavelli gives an essential guide to how a prince should appear and how he should interact with his subject in order to ensure that he is complacent and subordinate. On the other hand, Socrates works in the marketplace to unveil truths in such a revealing way that he actually sows the seeds of political change in the children of those he interviews. Machiavelli's prince and the Socratic gadfly can be said to be involved in a game of cat and mouse with each other, because one of the prince's main tools is deception, while the gadfly's goal is to expose the falsehoods and even deception employed by the prince so that people can see the world as it really is. Machiavelli's prince in his purest form is in some ways the perfect politician; he must be completely objective in relation to his specific situation; he must be “like a lion and a fox”, capable of frightening wolves and avoiding traps; and he must deceive his people not only in such a way as to make them complacent and self-satisfied, but also in such a way as to ensure that they will not be caught. The Machiavellian prince also cannot experience any emotion, because emotion would distort his view of the world. All these methods and qualities are Mac...... middle of paper ......e the resources to find and audit it. Eventually, he was arrested and is now in prison. I guess if Madoff had known he was going to jail, he wouldn't have started the Ponzi scheme. In conclusion, although Hobbe's theory of human nature is puzzling and sometimes even a little absurd, it is nonetheless understandable. . There are hundreds of examples happening every hour, ranging from civil wars to Ponzi schemes, that show humans are untrustworthy because they are too aggressive, violent, demanding, and self-serving. From looting stores to genocide in Africa, there is evidence that humans revert to parts of the natural man when a strong central authority is weakened, incompetent, or fails to enforce the laws. Therefore, although Hobbe's theory seems far-fetched at first glance, it is not entirely false...