Niccolò Machiavelli as Machiavelli had himself done, despite also explaining how they could sometimes work). This became the theme of much future political discourse in Europe during the 17th century. This includes the Catholic Counter Reformation writers summarised by Bireley: Giovanni Botero, Justus Lipsius, Carlo Scribani, Adam Contzen, Pedro de Ribadeneira, and Diego Saavedra Fajardo. These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways. They accepted the need for a prince to be concerned with reputation, and even a need for cunning and deceit, but compared to Machiavelli, and like later modernist writers, they emphasized economic progress much more than
Frank Meyer (political philosopher) "returning power to the states and communities" to allow the traditional "social consensus," its "robust individualism," and the free market to restore prosperity and civic vitality. Ronald Reagan took Meyer's idea of this Western synthesis into government and could claim some success in translating it into power, at least for a while. Its future, however, must be viewed as more problematical. Frank Meyer (political philosopher) Frank Straus Meyer (; 1909–1972) was an American philosopher and political activist best known for his theory of "fusionism" – a political philosophy that unites elements of libertarianism and traditionalism into a philosophical synthesis which