More recent scholarship has disagreed with the characterization of "Arthashastra" as "Machiavellianism". In Machiavelli's "The Prince", the king and his coterie are single-mindedly aimed at preserving the monarch's power for its own sake, states Paul Brians for example, but in the "Arthashastra", the king is required "to benefit and protect his citizens, including the peasants". Kautilya asserts in Arthashastra that, "the ultimate source of the prosperity of the kingdom is its security and prosperity of its people", a view never mentioned in Machiavelli's text. The text advocates "land reform", states Brians, where land is taken from landowners and farmers who own land but do not grow anything for a long time, and given to poorer farmers who want to grow crops but do not own any land.