Arnold Rothstein Character Analysis

There would be many more bullets, but I was going to learn on my journey that Arnold Rothstein has not yet died. Every time he is killed, a harder and more vicious version of him emerges to fill the space provided by prohibition for a global criminal industry. Arnold Rothstein is the start of a lineup of criminals that runs through the Crips and the Bloods and Pablo Escobar to Chapo Guzman—each more vicious because he was strong enough to kill the last.

[…]

And I was going to see that, like Rothstein, Harry Anslinger is reincarnated in ever-tougher forms, too. Before this war is over, his successors were going to be deploying gunships along the coasts of America, imprisoning more people than any other society in human history, and spraying poisons from the air across foreign countries thousands of miles away from home to kill their drug crops.

There will always be some people who are violent and disturbed and sadistic—but human beings respond to incentives. In Chino’s neighborhood, the financial incentives for a kid like him were to step up the violence and the sadism—because if he did, he would have a piece of one of the biggest and most profitable industries in America, and if he didn’t, he would be shut out and left in poverty.

If you are the first to kill your rivals’ relatives, including their pregnant women, you get a brief competitive advantage: people are more scared of your cartel and they will cede more of the drug market to you. Then every cartel does it: it becomes part of standard practice. If you are the first to behead people, you get a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to behead people on camera and post it on YouTube, you get a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to mount people’s heads on pikes and display them in public, you gain a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to behead a person, cut off his face, and sew it onto a soccer ball, you get a brief competitive advantage. And on it goes.

With legalization, the fevered poetry of the drug war has turned into the flat prose of the drug peace. Drugs have been turned into a topic as banal as selling fish, or tires, or lightbulbs.

As Barbara speaks, all the killing—from Arnold Rothstein to Chino’s gang to the Zetas—is being replaced by contracts. All the guns are being replaced by subordinate clauses. All the grief is being replaced by regulators and taxes and bureaucrats with clipboards.

[…]

I am bored at last, and I realize a tear of relief is running down my cheek.

There would be many more bullets, but I was going to learn on my journey that Arnold Rothstein has not yet died. Every time he is killed, a harder and more vicious version of him emerges to fill the space provided by prohibition for a global criminal industry. Arnold Rothstein is the start of a lineup of criminals that runs through the Crips and the Bloods and Pablo Escobar to Chapo Guzman—each more vicious because he was strong enough to kill the last.

[…]

And I was going to see that, like Rothstein, Harry Anslinger is reincarnated in ever-tougher forms, too. Before this war is over, his successors were going to be deploying gunships along the coasts of America, imprisoning more people than any other society in human history, and spraying poisons from the air across foreign countries thousands of miles away from home to kill their drug crops.

There will always be some people who are violent and disturbed and sadistic—but human beings respond to incentives. In Chino’s neighborhood, the financial incentives for a kid like him were to step up the violence and the sadism—because if he did, he would have a piece of one of the biggest and most profitable industries in America, and if he didn’t, he would be shut out and left in poverty.

If you are the first to kill your rivals’ relatives, including their pregnant women, you get a brief competitive advantage: people are more scared of your cartel and they will cede more of the drug market to you. Then every cartel does it: it becomes part of standard practice. If you are the first to behead people, you get a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to behead people on camera and post it on YouTube, you get a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to mount people’s heads on pikes and display them in public, you gain a brief competitive advantage. Then every cartel does it. If you are the first to behead a person, cut off his face, and sew it onto a soccer ball, you get a brief competitive advantage. And on it goes.

With legalization, the fevered poetry of the drug war has turned into the flat prose of the drug peace. Drugs have been turned into a topic as banal as selling fish, or tires, or lightbulbs.

As Barbara speaks, all the killing—from Arnold Rothstein to Chino’s gang to the Zetas—is being replaced by contracts. All the guns are being replaced by subordinate clauses. All the grief is being replaced by regulators and taxes and bureaucrats with clipboards.

[…]

I am bored at last, and I realize a tear of relief is running down my cheek.