Peace on Earth; worth paying for

Applying the Social Policy Bond concept to conflict reduction means, in effect, paying people not to kill each other. It doesn't sound very edifying, but I'll make the case for it anyway.

Of course, it is less than ideal that people don't freely choose to live in peace; and frequently invade and kill in pursuit of their goals or those of their leaders. Throughout the centuries, we haven't found ways of ending war. Conflict has so many causes and it's widely believed that war is an inevitable, intractable aspect of humanity. Given the human and resource cost of war and preparing for war, I think it reasonable to allocate funds to eliminating it for a sustained period. A Conflict Reduction Bond regime would aim to do this and, importantly, if it were to fail, no government funds would be lost. 

A misconception of those who disdain the Social Policy Bond principle is that they think paying for results means huge cash prizes for the already wealthy. It's true that, under a bond regime investors in the bonds would benefit if the targeted social goal are achieved quickly but, in the long run, what's more likely is that more people would be attracted to working to achieve achieve the targeted goal. The most efficient of these should see some higher financial rewards but, more importantly, they will have more resources with which to work. It's my impression that, if there were bodies with a proven record of bringing about peace in a wide range of circumstances, they'd enjoy very high levels of funding.

Underlying all this reasoning, though, are two points:

• Incentives matter. Weapons manufacturers, ideologues, military bodies all respond rationally to the incentives on offer. Not all these are financial incentives, but there are sufficient monetary rewards to those who manufacture and use weapons to make sustained periods of world peace unlikely. A Conflict Reduction Bond regime would offset such rewards, to a degree dependent on their backing.
  
• While it would be lovely if people's humanity alone were sufficient to ensure peace on earth and goodwill to all, the Conflict Reduction Bond option of making explicit, taxpayer-funded payments in exchange for world peace would be preferable to the situation we have today.