How Power Rots From Within Machiavelli’s analysis of political corruption in The Discourses provides one of history’s most penetrating examinations of how power structures decay. Unlike moralists who attribute corruption to individual vice, Machiavelli identifies systemic patterns through which even well-designed institutions rot from within. His analysis, grounded in Roman history and Florentine experience, reveals corruption as a cyclical process that is predictable, nearly inevitable, and extraordinarily difficult to reverse once established. Understanding this cycle is essential for anyone who wishes to build or maintain institutions, whether political states, corporations, or social movements. The term corruption in Machiavellian thought extends...