More Like The Ignobel's, Am I Right?

I have to write a paper for school, so I might have to postpone writing more about socialism—you'll have to find fascinating, thought-provoking content somewhere else. I'll post the paper, which is about Milton Friedman's view on corporate social responsibility, if people are interested.

But I did want to comment quickly on some really stupid sounding news: the European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize, which apparently was "announced to audible gasps from a roomful of journalists in Oslo".

So the EU is totally terrible and doesn't live up to a lot of basic democratic and technocratic expectations. In particular, the European Central Bank seems actively hostile to both democracy and technical expertise. And the future of the Eurozone is tenuous, to put it mildly.

On the face of it, giving the EU the Nobel is totally ridiculous and makes no sense, much like rewarding Obama with the Nobel peace prize made no sense.

But the charitable interpretation of Obama's Nobel was not they were trying to reward Obama; everyone knows he didn't deserve it. They were trying to influence Obama to promote peace, and to influence American voters by showing their distaste for the ostensibly more bellicose Republicans.

Obama did however, deserve his Grammy, and even though he's too old to play serious basketball, he has hustle.

In the same way, I think the Nobel committee may be trying to push Europeans to renew their commitments to European unification, and that's a very good idea. It's true that the EU isn't an ideal institution, and adopting a common currency for reasons of political symbolism, rather than economic utility, has really exploded in everyone's faces.

But it's easy to forget, when you're here in North America, that we're currently experiencing the longest period of peace along the Rhine since the beginning of the Roman Empire. Europeans are brutal barbarians, and unification has tempered that. And the possibility of EU membership was a really effective carrot to get candidate countries to improve their governance. I don't think it's crazy for the Nobel committee to remind everyone of that.

That's not to say it'll work. I'm not sure anyone would argue that Obama's Nobel achieved anything, either in influencing American opinion-makers or the Obama administration to be less bloodthirsty.

But even if the Nobel committee is completely wrong about the EU, and I don't think that's clear, it's worth understanding their actions.And we don't interpret people charitably just because it's a nice thing to do; charity is what makes understanding possible.

Or maybe the Nobel committee just decides these things by throwing darts at Newsweek covers. That would explain some things too.

"Young man, you have the bravery of a hero and breath as fresh as a summer ham."

Update: Dylan Matthews wrote about the advantages of  European integration with much more detail over at wonkblog.