Friday, October 09, 2009

Why the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't matter

...or, rather, why it so consistently chooses the person who promotes war in the long run over the person who actually promotes peace; Nobel specifically wanted the prize to go to a person who would work to reduce and abolish standing armies and have peace congresses.

Now compare that with what Bastiat said about the issue; if goods do not cross borders, armies will. Nobel's tragic failure is to try to tinker with the size of armies instead of encouraging real peace--through trade--is why so many recipients are connected with disastrous initiatives like the Oslo accords and Kellogg-Briand--and so few recipients have had lasting fruit in their endeavors.

OK, a Bike Bubba Peace Prize to Bastiat, if only we could get people to listen to him.

3 comments:

pentamom said...

That's why Muhammad Yunnus is hands down the best pick of the decade. It's not precisely the same as cross-border trade, but people feel less need to grab each other's stuff and/or support warlike demagogues if they have the means of self-support within their grasp.

But even on the principle you stated, why Obama? He hasn't reduced standing armies or had peace congresses. He's TALKED ABOUT DOING STUFF. That's really, truly, literally all. Gitmo is still open, for crying out loud. The torture policy hasn't substantively changed (only procedurally.) The Iraq withdrawal timetable hasn't kicked in, and he's talking about sending MORE troops to Afghanistan.

While I agree with you that the Prize was never really credible because of its underpinnings, they've destroyed any residual credibility they might have built up over the years through making at least a few decent picks, by picking someone purely because of 1) things he's said that he has yet to deliver on and 2) the votes of millions of people over which he had no control.

Bike Bubba said...

Yup. Best thing I can say about Obama is that he hasn't done anything horrifically bad for peace processes yet.

Not that he's not trying with North Korea, Iran, Honduras, Poland, Czech Republic, and so on. Looks like he'll be a winner along the lines of the Kellogg-Briand recipients soon, alas.

pentamom said...

Even Kellogg and Briand actually MADE a treaty. Even Arafat made a treaty. Foolish and/or meaningless as those treaties may have been from a rational point of view, they were substantive accomplishments. That's why this choice takes it to a whole new level -- they gave it to someone who hasn't even had a chance to do anything good OR bad, purely for rhetorical purposes (i.e., stick it to George Bush for the fourth time this decade.)