A Prince needs to be thought of as generous. This will make the people love him and respect him. However, Machiavelli says that “Generosity pursued in a way that makes people perceive you as generous will harm you, because if you exercise generosity in all modesty, as is appropriate, it will not be recognized, and you will not be able to avoid the reputation of miserliness” (Machiavelli 74). However, to be generous a prince would have to consume all of his resources to maintain the appearance of being generous, but this would mean that he would overburden the populace with taxes and lose the favor of the people causing hatred (Machiavelli 74). This is a situation that cannot be won. In this situation a prince would need to pick the lesser of the two evils, which in this case is miserliness. If a prince is considered miserly then the people will have disdain for him. However, a reputation for being generous “brings with it a reputation for rapacity, incurring disdain with hatred” (Machiavelli 76). If the people hate the prince, they will move against him. But if the people have only disdain for the prince, they will still follow him but will only be slightly angry with him.
Machiavelli proves that being generous is not always a good thing. Because with generosity comes destruction. If the prince is not generous, the people will still follow him but will not replace him.
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