Noble Nobels, or not , that is the question?
It sounds a little wonky, but I think this is really the question that a lot of people around the world have raised after the Nobel Prizes for this year were announced a few days back.
The Peace Prize has gone to US President Barack Obama. The Economics one has gone to two laureates, but the first one named was a woman, the first woman to be named for an Economics Nobel, Elinor Ostrom.
The citations say, for Obama:
“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”,
And, for Ostrom:
“for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”
The two prizes have something in common – they have been given to people who are providing some kind of hope that this planet will survive capitalism and will be able to move peacefuly – transcend peacefully – to a more commonly owned planet, a new, more communist world order.
Obama is the first US President in history who has talked about climate change in his oath taking speech. US Presidents in the past had never ever recognized this issue as important and that America, as the world’s largest and most powerful economy and country, had the greatest responsibility in fixing climate change.
Obama has many other firsts to his credit as US President – someone who has given out hope to the world that the US, the world’s largest and most powerful economy and country – has woken up to the realisation that unles it changes its ways the world cannot be saved.
Ostrom has, on the other hand , given out hope that yes, even common, collective ownership can be as effective as private or state ownership.
Her studies are not definitive and based mainly on case studies. Capitalists, or what Marxists should specifically call bourgeoisie intelligentsia/illuminati, would definitely try to discredit her results and conclusions in a big way, but the point is that by giving the prize to her, it seems even the Nobel Prize Committee has begun to recognise that the only way out for the world is to transit into some kind of common ownership of the planet by all mankind and all living species.
This simple conclusion is certainly no “Rocket Science” because in the global scientific community this is now common knowledge – common ownership of the planet by all the living species on earth is the only sustainable way out – how you work this out is your problem – but this has to be done.
As far as I am concerned the prize to Obama would not have made any sense if it had not been followed by the one to Ostrom.
To me that is the link – the world’s top thinkers, and I assume the Nobel Prize Committee consults many experts and powerful, influential people – pick on winners to send a message.
The awards to Obama and Ostrom are clearly based on hope – the world is facing an unprecedented crisis – the only way the earth can be saved is by transiting to a global common ownership model and it cannot be done unless the US leads the campaign.
The hope is, of course, utopian. Obama is riding a tiger that he cannot get off. The Maoists are riding a tiger that they cannot get off – they cannot rely on hope, they have to survive now. And, nobody is really bothering about how to transit to a common ownership world, peacefully or otherwise.
Karl Marx , in his grave, would be happy to know that the spectre of communism is still haunting Europe and the world.
