Q&A of the Day – The History of the Nobel Committee & Who is On It
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Dear Brian, I believe it was on your morning show that I heard that the people of Norway had the power to decide what the world considers to be an international prize for peace. In the light of this year's Nobel Peace Prize we can only recognize the 'peace' award as being the bias of a nation of liberals. The prize to B. Obama for doing nothing is another example of liberal prejudice. Do the people of Norway deserve to decide who is the world's peace maker? Surely Norway does not have the right to make this choice. They overrate themselves. Thank you for all you do.
Bottom Line: There’s little doubt that the awarding of the Nobel Peace prize to Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader to Nicolas Maduro, came as a surprise. For example, for those who bet on these things in the financial markets, her odds prior to the announcement were at less than 1%. At the same time, only 5% of people believed that President Trump would win the award...and not because only 5% of people believed that the president who has literally brokered more than one peace deal per month, wasn’t deserving, but rather that the politics of the decision makers would preclude President Trump from winning the award. That realization speaks as much as anything to the validity/significance of the “peace prize”.
The best way I know to illustrate how arbitrary the Nobel prizes are, is the example of the Academy Awards. When the Hollywood industry elites gather each year to award Oscars, they’ll issue awards for the “best actor and actress” and for the “Best picture”, etc. Does that mean that the best actor over the previous year was the actor or actress was issued the award or that the “best picture” released during the year is what the Academy says it is? Of course not, right? It’s what members of the Academy say is so. As we know, it’s a highly subjective process. Nobel prizes are no different. They’re highly subjective prizes awarded by select insiders that hold no empirical significance.
Here’s the background on the Nobel prizes and committees that decide them...
The Nobel Prizes trace their origins to the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist born in Stockholm in 1833. Nobel amassed a vast fortune—equivalent to about $250 million today—through his invention of dynamite in 1867 and the establishment of over 90 armaments factories worldwide. Despite his wealth from explosives, which earned him the nickname: "Merchant of Death", Nobel was conflicted due to his belief in humanitarianism.
On November 27, 1895, a year before his death from a cerebral hemorrhage, Nobel signed his last will and testament in Paris. In it, he directed that 94% of his estate be converted into a fund to establish annual prizes "to those who, in the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." The prizes were to be awarded in five fields: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace—chosen to reflect Nobel's interests in science, humanism, and global harmony.
Implementing the will proved challenging. Nobel's family contested it, fearing it would deplete the estate, and no government initially agreed to administer the prizes. After legal battles and negotiations, the Swedish government intervened, leading to the creation of the Nobel Foundation in 1900 as a private, tax-exempt institution headquartered in Stockholm. The Foundation's statute was approved by the Swedish king, Oscar II, and it began investing the fortune conservatively in real estate, bonds, and later stocks—growing the endowment to about $500 million currently.
The inaugural Nobel Prizes were awarded on December 10, 1901—the fifth anniversary of Nobel's death—in a ceremony at the Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm and have been awarded ever since with two periods of omission from 1914 to 1918 during World War I, and again from 1940 to 1942 during World War II, which included the Nazi occupation of Norway.
In 1968 a sixth prize, in Economic Science was added. Prior to this year’s awards, 630 prizes have been awarded to 1,020 individuals and organizations, which include gold medals, cash prizes, and banquets. As for who serves on the Nobel committees...
The Nobel selection process is private. Confidentiality is paramount: nominees and deliberations remain secret for 50 years, which is said to “shield the process from lobbying or bias”. Each award has its own committee. These committees, of four or 4–5 members, handle initial screening and expert consultations but lack final authority; the parent institution votes on their recommendations. Members are appointed for fixed terms, often 3–4 years. They are said to represent a rotating pool of global talent, though Scandinavian dominance persists. All current peace prize committee members are Norwegian.
So that’s the ball of wax in a nutshell and why Norwegians have outsized influence in the Nobel process. Let’s say that when Warren Buffet dies, he were to convert his charitable trust into the “Buffet Awards of Excellence” committee or some such thing. Would annual awards issued through it mean all that much to you? That’s effectively all that the Nobel prizes are. It’s just that somewhere along the way numerous societies decided they had greater significance than they do. Just as some people care about TMZ and the Academy Awards. It’s really no different. It’s all only as important as people chose for it to be in their own minds.