Forces Behind the Decline of Violence

Impartial Spectator, Reason & the Limits of Self-Love

  • Opening citation from Adam Smith: our conscience (“the man within”) checks self-love by reminding us that we are just one among many.
  • Smith’s “impartial spectator” teaches
    • Propriety of generosity vs. deformity of injustice.
    • Willingness to surrender even “greatest interests of our own” for “greater interests of others.”
  • Charles Darwin (Descent of Man) adds an evolutionary perspective: once tribes unite into nations, only an “artificial barrier” keeps sympathy from extending to all races.

The Project of the Chapter

  1. Documented decline in violence brings gratitude rather than brash optimism.
  2. Violence trends are contingent on social, cultural & material conditions; if those persist, violence will stay low.
  3. Goal: Identify broad, recurring forces that pushed violence downward across:
    • Pacification Process
    • Civilizing Process
    • Humanitarian Revolution
    • Long Peace & New Peace
    • Rights Revolutions

‘Important but Inconsistent’ Explanations

1. Weaponry & Disarmament

  • Historians and pacifists both obsess over weapons (longbows → nukes).
  • Empirical finding: no robust correlation between destructive power of weapons and overall human toll.
    • Stone-Age spears produced higher per-capita death rates than modern wars.
    • Military “revolutions” often about army size & organization, not hardware.
    • Drops in violence (e.g.
      Long Peace) came before arms reductions; disarmament usually follows peace.
  • Bottom line: Technology ≠ Destiny; violence depends on whether people want others dead (the gun-control cliché “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is descriptively correct).

2. Resource Determinism

  • Example satire: 1970s “tungsten theory” of the Vietnam War.
  • Resource competition matters episodically but poor predictor of long-term trends.
    • Worst conflicts of last 500 yrs fueled by religion, ideology, ethnic nationalism—not raw materials.
    • Nations blessed with oil or minerals (e.g.
      Nigeria, Congo) are often violent internally, showing “resource curse.”
  • Trade creates positive-sum alternatives; conquest becomes negative-sum once war costs are tallied.

3. Wealth & Affluence

  • Mixed evidence:
    • Among poorest states, ext{GDP}_{pc}<\$2{,}500 strongly predicts civil war.
    • But genocide is not more likely in poorer countries (Nazi Germany was rich).
    • Inside the U.S. homicide fell during the Great Depression but spiked in the affluent 1960s.

4. Religion

  • Religion often legitimates violence when “the sacred” trumps compromise.
    • European Wars of Religion, Middle-East conflicts.
  • Counter-claim that Nazism & Communism were “atheist” oversimplified:
    • Fascism compatible with Catholicism & Protestantism; many Nazis merged Christianity with nationalism.
    • Communism adopted Christian apocalyptic structure (secularized millenarianism).
  • Yet some denominations (Quakers, liberal Protestants, African-American churches) advanced abolition, pacifism, civil rights.
  • Conclusion: Religion can motivate both violence and peace; not a consistent driver.

The Pacifist’s Dilemma (A 2-Person Game)

Matrix of pay-offs (arbitrary but illustrative):

Other = PacifistOther = Aggressor
Self = Pacifist+5 (Peace)-100 (Defeat)
Self = Aggressor+10 (Victory)-50 (War)

Key insights:

  • First tragedy: Pacifism is irrational if unilateral; aggression dominates.
  • Second tragedy: Game is negative-sum; losses to victim (−100) dwarf gains to victor (+10).
  • Thus, major historical progress occurs when forces alter the pay-offs so Peace becomes each party’s best reply.

Five Major Violence-Reducing Forces & How They Change the Game

1. The Leviathan (State Monopoly on Force)

  • Government imposes a penalty > benefit of aggression (e.g.
    fine or jail ≥ 3× victor’s gains):
    10 - 15 = -5 < 5 \quad \Rightarrow \text{Aggression irrational}.
  • Effects documented:
    • First states cut tribal homicide rates 5-fold.
    • European consolidation cut homicide another 30-fold (Civilizing Process).
    • Violence spikes when Leviathan retreats (failed states, police strikes, 1960s U.S.).

2. Gentle Commerce (Mutual Profit)

  • Trade adds a bonus to the Peace payoff:
    5 + 100 = 105 \; (>10).
  • Preconditions: complementary goods, infrastructure (roads, money, contract law).
  • Historical evidence:
    • Medieval shift from plunder to trade; decline of mercantilism.
    • 18th-century transformation of European powers into commercial rather than martial states.
    • Post-1970s China & Vietnam: opening markets ➜ reduced interstate warmaking.
    • Statistical findings: trading dyads fight fewer wars; open economies host fewer civil wars.

3. Feminization (Empowerment & Influence of Women)

  • Women, on average, prefer compromise > glory, so their pay-offs reorder the matrix:
    • Victory sans “glory” worth less, war costlier, defeat less humiliating.
    • Result: Peace becomes individually optimal.
  • Mechanisms & evidence:
    • Women spearheaded abolitionism, pacifism, child-protection, etc.
    • Nations with higher female status show lower political/judicial violence.
    • Demography: “bare branches” (excess males) in China–India–Afghanistan correlate with banditry, insurgency, interstate war.
    • Female education, contraception, and equal marriage rights shrink youth-bulge and reduce male competition.

4. The Expanding Circle (Empathy via Perspective-Taking)

  • Increased contact, literacy & media intermingle “us” and “them,” raising the subjective value of others’ welfare.
    • Republic of Letters → Reading Revolution (17th–18th c.) preceded Humanitarian reforms (end of slavery, torture).
    • 20th-century Global Village, televised war coverage, sat photos of earth foster cosmopolitanism.
  • Lab studies: reading first-person narratives boosts empathic concern; even short stories lessen willingness to harm.

5. Escalator of Reason (Logic, Evidence & Universal Humanism)

  • Rational discourse identifies inconsistencies (e.g.
    “If torment is evil for me, why not for him?”) and generalizes moral norms.
  • Milestones:
    • Enlightenment briefs against slavery, despotism, cruelty to animals/children/women.
    • 20th-century Kantian & liberal institutions: democracy, collective security, arms-control regimes, non-violent resistance templates.
  • Trend toward classical liberalism & humanism—value systems that are universally negotiable unlike tribal/authoritarian dogmas.

Interactions & Reinforcement

  • Forces are partly independent and partly synergistic:
    • Commerce and Leviathan both need trustworthy contract enforcement.
    • Feminization flourishes under institutions (education, contraception) supplied by affluence and reason.
    • Expanding Circle rides on media technology, which commerce incentivizes and reason refines.

Illustrative Examples & Anecdotes

  • Tsutomu Yamaguchi (Hiroshima & Nagasaki survivor) quipped that the world should be run by “nursing mothers”—an anecdote on feminization.
  • “Tungsten theory” of Vietnam war lampooned resource determinism.
  • Hudson & den Boer: “A Surplus of Men, a Deficit of Peace” details link between male-skewed sex ratios and instability.

Connections to Earlier Chapters

  • Pacification & Civilizing Processes (Ch. 2–3) = Leviathan in action.
  • Humanitarian Revolution (Ch. 4) = Escalator of Reason + Expanding Circle.
  • Long & New Peaces (Ch. 5–6) = Commerce, Democracy, Kantian logic.
  • Rights Revolutions (Ch. 7) = Feminization + Expanding Circle + Reason.
  • Psychological underpinnings (Ch. 8–9): self-control, empathy, moralization, sacred values; constraints and boosters for the five forces.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

  • Modernity’s vindication: material progress did not bring new horrors without offset; instead, empirical data falsify nostalgia for a peaceful past.
  • Negative-sum logic of violence (huge pain vs.
    small gain) supports utilitarian moral frameworks.
  • Policy levers: strengthen rule of law, deepen trade, promote gender equality, expand education/media literacy, protect free inquiry.

Numerical & Formal References

  • Pay-off values: +5, +10, -50, -100 (baseline);
    adjusted by Leviathan penalty (-15) or commerce bonus (+100).
  • GDP threshold for civil-war risk ≈ \$2{,}500 per capita.
  • Homicide decline: ≈30\times from medieval to modern Europe.
  • Youth-bulge predictor: proportion of males aged 15–29 correlates with interstate & civil war incidence.

Final Reflections

  • Decline of violence is real, measurable, yet reversible; contingent on maintaining the five forces.
  • Modern comforts (technology, longevity, knowledge) are matched by unprecedented safety.
  • Moral progress echoes in individual tragedies averted—millions spared of torture, rape, and early death.
  • Continued nurturing of civilization, commerce, equality, empathy, and reason remains imperative for pushing humanity further into the peaceful upper-left cell of the Pacifist’s Dilemma.