The Prince and His Heirs

Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, and Caesar imitated Alexander – but who did the powerful men of today take as their role models? Caligula, Napoleon III, Mao? »Be careful what you wish for«, as the old proverb goes. Perhaps today's leaders should have been more cautious when they wished for more charismatic heads of state and government in the era of post-politics.

»I am the chosen one«, claimed Donald Trump in 2019. Since returning to office, he has been living out a version of the madman theory that seems like it was cooked up by a modern Machiavelli: people who are viewed as unpredictable make the best deals. On the other side of the globe, the »supreme leader« Xi Jinping is forming a posse with Tsar Putin and Narendra Modi, who had the world's tallest statue erected in honour of his idol.

Machiavelli taught that a prince who wants to maintain power must learn not to be good. The new autocrats have learned this lesson. Peter Sloterdijk does not set himself up as their advisor, but proves to be a cool-headed and clear-sighted analyst of this new type of prince. For Sloterdijk, the figure of this newfangled prince raises the question of whether the modern world has actually moved beyond the model of monarchy, where power is embodied in individuals.