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From a distance, the American political system is a remarkable success. We have accomplished the peaceful transfer of power for more than two hundred years, and that's unmatched by any civilization in human history. Up close, our political system still has all the ugliness and bad actors that you might suspect.

It is a very great mistake, and a very common one, even for well-read persons, to adopt the idea that the progress of the human race in the science of government, in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the establishment of morality and religion, has been constantly and steadily towards improvement and perfection.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

It was hard to figure out what were the good causes, the bad causes, even the good politics and the bad politics. So we started taking requests and figuring it out.

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

The miserable failures of capitalist economies in the Great Depression were root causes of worldwide social and political disasters.

It would be especially tragic if the people who most cherish ideals of peace, who are most anxious for political cooperation on a wider than national scale, made the mistake of underestimating the pace of economic change in our modern world.

The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.

When leaders are no longer beholden to the people who elected them, corruption results and the recruitment of extremists becomes easier.