Sublime

Here is Eisner’s one-sentence summary of how to halve the homicide rate within three decades: “An effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons is critical to sustainable reductions in lethal violence.”

FDR’s administrative style was a legendary mixture of straightforward delegation, flowchart responsibility, Machiavellian cunning, and crafty deception.

As the monopoly on violence enjoyed by the “bigger battalions” breaks down, one of the first results to be expected is increasing prosperity for organized crime. Organized crime, after all, provides the main competition to nation-states in employing violence for predatory purposes. Although it is impolite to say so, it should not be forgotten, as

When we do, we assume the politicians are clients in a patron–client relationship, and we assume their obligations will cloud their impartial judgment.

Pinker, though, is confident that an objective statistical analysis, shorn of sentiment, will show us to be living in an age of unprecedented peace and security. And this, he suggests, is the logical outcome of living in sovereign states, each with a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence within its borders, as opposed to the ‘anarchic

Many men dreamed at last of establishing above the cities a sort of sovereign power, which should look to the maintenance of order, and compel those turbulent little societies to live in peace. It was thus that Phocion, a good citizen, advised his compatriots m accept the authority of Philip, and promised them, at this price, concord and security.

The historian Andrew Roberts reminds us that, although the most common understanding of ‘leadership’ connotes inherent goodness, leadership ‘is in fact completely morally neutral, as capable of leading mankind to the abyss as to the sunlit uplands. It is a protean force of terrifying power’ that we must strive to orient toward moral ends.[14]