Nobel Prize: The difference between Peace and Economics

[Ozymanithrax]

Everyone knows that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Reactions range from the Shit Storm on the right to the We are not worthy bang your head on the floor crowd on the left.

Few people know, or care, Oliver E. Williamson and Elinor Ostrom shared the Nobel this year.

Reactions to the Nobel in Economic Science
"Mr. Williamson won for his theory of why some business transactions take place inside of firms and others don’t; and Ms. Ostrom won for her analysis of the rules and procedures that govern common property ownership."
...SNIP...

Williams award is based on his 1985 book "The Economic Institutions of Capitalism" and Ostrom's work was for decades of field work. In both cases, the award is not for something they did last year, but work that, over decades, has proven enlightening to the way the Science of Economics works.

The peace prize in 1985 went to "The organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War." If that organization were awarded today, most people would say, "Who?" Their work in 1985 does not inform or illuminate attempts today to work for peace.

The Peace prize, in essence, is a prize for an active process. It is to encourage people to work everyday for peace rather than as a reward to some great peace maker. Other awards are for work that provided some signature insight, some leap forward that rarely, if ever, was recognized when it was made.

Those differences are important.