The Ledger

The title is not a metaphor. It is a measurement.

Each year the world records the cost of violence and the cost of preventing it. By the accounting of the Global Peace Index, the first figure reaches roughly seventeen trillion dollars. The second, the sum spent building peace reaches roughly forty-seven billion.

Set side by side, the ratio resolves to a fraction of a coin. For every dollar committed against us, barely half a cent is committed for us.

The same index records the lowest global peacefulness in eighteen years, across fifty-nine active conflicts. These are the numbers the work holds still.