Nobel surPrizes

The last week has delivered two important Nobel Prize results: first, Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace and, second, Elinor Ostrom (along with Oliver Williamson) won the prize for Economics.

In the communities of financial professionals with whom I work – mostly dominated by libertarian political orientations, but also traditional republican ones – the response has been largely one of collective sneering. “What stuff have those Swedes been smoking?” they ask, “that they give a Peace Prize to a President who hasn’t accomplished anything yet, and an Economics Prize to a Political Scientist?” More importantly, “where can I get some?”

Barak for Peace

I confess that I too was a little confused at the choice of Barak Obama for the Peace Prize, and my immediate instinct was to feel that this was premature, since he has yet to book the great accomplishments that we associate with Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Jimmy Carter, F.W. DeKlerk and Nelson Mandela (note that the first two names on this list did not win the Peace Prize, but surely would be deserving were they alive to receive it). And this opinion is also shared by many liberals, including Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman, or even the President himself, all of whom reacted with puzzlement at the announcement.

But even if we admit that we would like to have seen more concrete results actually achieved before bestowing such an award on the President, maybe we lack proper perspective on the events that resulted in this decision. For one, the Nobel Peace prize is awarded by Swedes, not Americans, and so perhaps we have underestimated the degree to which the Bush years were seen by the rest of the world as a threat to global peace.

The doctrine of pre-emptive war, the defining of torture so narrowly that it could be used in practice with impunity, the discarding of the antiballistic missile treaty, or any pretense of handling global environmental issues, or the dismissing of “old Europe” and its traditions in favor of “new Europe” and its ability to be bought off inexpensively. In the United States, we could at least entertain the argument that we benefited (albeit in a short-sighted myopic way) from these actions. From the perspective of the rest of the world, which includes our Swedish award-givers, the world had become a much much more dangerous place because of the unpredictable, unbounded, and at times seemingly-irrational actions of the world’s foremost military and economic power.

When we wonder what Barak Obama has done to deserve the Prize, we may be forgetting just how frightening the United States was to the rest of the world over the last eight years. We had ceased to be “big and lumbering,” and had become “big and dangerous.” And not just to Al Qaeda and the so-called “axis of evil,” but even to our traditional allies in “old Europe.” In this case, the election of Barak Obama represents a major change in world relations, and an accomplishment in and of itself. From within US borders, maybe we can’t see that as clearly, and so we underestimate the accomplishment.

Secondly, we may be underestimating the effect of Barak Obama on the legacy of race relations in the United States and around the world. In a world that is predominantly made up of non-white individuals, the effect of looking at the most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world and saying “hey, that person looks more like ME than like, say, Bill Gates or Donald Trump,” sends a powerful message that we may be moving to a world that is more inclusive, more tolerant, and has opportunities within the system for everyone. This is certainly important for the black community in America: to see the President and say “hey, this President looks more like me than George Washington” is a concrete example of progress in race relations and suggests that there is a path toward a fulfilling and influential life in this country, and Tom Friedman has reported that this effect is also extremely prominent in travels abroad.

In Roman times, Emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98-117 AD, was the first non-Italian emperor, and under him, Rome achieved its greatest territorial extent, and arguably its greatest prosperity. But, more importantly, his rule solidified the idea that Rome and its emperor represented the interests of the entire empire, and not simply the ambitions of a few rival Italian families. Under Trajan, the empire began to share an identity as a common unit, with the idea that any citizen could be emperor. In a similar way, although to a lesser extent, the broadening of the political class today can be understood as a bridge for building greater world unity. One should be realistic about the limits of symbols, but that does not mean they are irrelevant or unimportant. People still fight and die for symbols and the ideas they represent.

Thirdly – and this is more grim – we do know that, for all the progress on race relations over the past 40 years, racial hatred and extremists have not vanished from the scene. Although I certainly hope nothing like this ever happens, it is not unreasonable to recognize that this President runs a higher-than average risk of assassination by, say, white supremacists, or equally, al Qaeda operatives. As Nobel Prizes are not given posthumously, the Nobel Committee may have decided to award the Prize as soon as possible in order to avoid the risk of not being able to award it at all, and the fact that Barak Obama willingly faces these higher risks on a daily basis does indeed make him more worthy to receive it. Today he may be protected by the Secret Service, but he was not always President, and almost certainly has faced this danger – with less protection – earlier in his career.

Awarding the the Prize to Barak Obama may not be so much an award to him as a person (though it is this too), as an award to the American People for having steered away from the unilateralism of the Bush years. Even if we scratch our head at how quickly the award arrived, let us not underestimate how much we have accomplished so far and how wide the effects of our actions still reach.

The award in Economics

As usual, this blog has gotten more involved than anticipated when I started, and I will talk about the significance of the Ostrom/Williamson award in a subsequent piece.