Pay or pray for world peace

Professor Dominic Lieven, in a letter to the editor of the Financial Times, writes about the origins of the First World War:

Far more than any other individual, it was the German chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, whose miscalculations led to war. These miscalculations were rooted in a deeply pessimistic analysis of the probable future European geopolitical developments, which owed something to personal anguish caused by the death of his wife shortly before the assassination of the Habsburg heir at Sarajevo. America's declining empire: more Vienna 1914 than Suez 1956, Dominic Lieven, 'Financial Times',. 27 January 2026

It's scary how much the life of every human on the planet depends on the psychological make-up and stability of the very few individuals who lead our countries. Just as scary is that it's accepted that the systems that give these people such power are rarely challenged. How far have we advanced since the days of von Bethmann Hollweg, whose state of mind and mood swings arguably caused the catastrophe of World War 1, with consequences that blighted the entire twentieth century? Not much really, except that we can now imagine that a similarly disturbed individual could cause hundreds, rather than tens of millions to die.

We need to cut out the middleman - politicians and their policies - and instead vote directly for the outcomes we wish to see. This could be done by issuing Social Policy Bonds that would reward investors for achieving these goals, and at every step along the way. At first, targeted outcomes could be modest, and set at the national level. They could include such goals as increasing the health of the population by five percentage points, or reducing crime rates by 20%. Politicians could do something useful, and translate our wishes into coherent, actionable, policy goals. They would also raise the revenue that would be used to redeem the bonds once the targeted goal had been achieved. 

But what about the possibility of war? A bond regime could target the sustained absence of conflict, supplying incentives for the people who influence those in positions of power, to avoid war or face being removed from office. This could work at the national or global level. In the long run, a carefully crafted World Peace Bond regime would see incentives cascading downwards from the goal of world peace through all levels of all political systems, reducing the likelihood that the people at the top will inflame conflict. 

Avoiding violent political conflict - war and civil war - should be our first priority. Sadly, the incentives currently on offer make such violence more likely rather than less. A bond regime, at first reading, might seem outlandish but the alternative is simply 'business as usual' ie, rely on hope, and pray that the people in power resist their instincts and those of their ideologically motivated advisors and refrain from using their military might to impose their will on others. It's a scenario judged 'alarming' by the Economist, as well as me:

To an alarming degree, war and peace now depend on the whims of a handful of vain old men. Vladimir Putin is determined to add square miles to Russia, no matter how many Russians die or are impoverished in the process. Whether or not China invades Taiwan hinges on Xi Jinping, who craves a chapter in the history books and a chance to honour his late father, who was once the official in charge of reclaiming the island. Mr Trump is the least predictable of all, wielding American firepower willy-nilly to give short-lasting dopamine shots to his own ego. A chilling but plausible scenario: What if Putin wins?, 'the Economist', 22 January 2026 

I'd rather see a system, like a bond regime, that would reward people who work for and achieve peace in ways linked to their success in doing so. This would expand the numbers of people and the range of activities directed towards the ending of war. As well, the bonds would channel market forces - in economic theory and on all the evidence, the most efficient way of allocating society's scarce resources - into achieving peace as cost-effectively as possible. The alternative means continuing to place the fate of millions of people in the hands a tiny number of people who are just as subject to frailty, delusion and instability as the rest of us. 

It's a billionaire's world

George Monbiot writes: 

The World Inequality Report...2026 shows that about 56,000 people – 0.001% of the global population – corral three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. ... In the UK, for example, 50 families hold more wealth than 50% of the population combined. You can watch their fortunes grow. In 2024, Oxfam’s figures show, the wealth of the world’s 2,769 billionaires grew by $2tn, or $2,000bn. The total global spending on international aid last year was projected to be, at most, $186bn, less than a tenth of the increment in their wealth. Governments tell us they “can’t afford” more. In the UK, billionaires, on average, have become more than 1,000% richer since 1990. Most of their wealth derives from property, inheritance and finance. George Monbiot, Money talks, 23 January 2026

There is, possibly, a case to be made for huge disparities in wealth in a world without poverty, where the wealth is channeled into the relief of poverty, and where the wealth is accumulated through ways that benefit society or, at least, are not destructive of society. In such a world, philosophical discussions about desirable wealth distributions would be interesting and likely to be inconclusive, with good arguments to be made on all sides. But we don't live in such a world. There is poverty (7.5% of the world's population is estimated to be living in 'extreme poverty') and other afflictions that could be alleviated with a more equal distribution of wealth. There is some philanthropy, but:

Forbes once again investigated the lifetime philanthropic giving of every member of The Forbes 400. In total, these billionaires—worth at least $3.8 billion each—have donated an aggregate $319 billion to charitable causes over their lifetimes. [H]owever, America’s richest people are still not all that generous, relatively speaking. Their collective charitable giving equals just 4.6% of their total wealth—and that’s down from 5% last year. Three-quarters of them have given less than 5% of their fortunes away, including 40% who have donated less than 1% of their riches. America’s richest billionaires keep getting richer. They’re not donating much more, Ella Malmgren, 'Forbes', 9 September 2025

What about the sources of great wealth? Inheritance is one; in many countries, it's relatively easy to minimise with legal strategies like trusts, gifts, and charitable donations to minimize inheritance taxes. Rising property prices also have much to do with rising inequality, widening the gap between those who inherit wealth and those who, in many countries, can never own their own homes, however hard they work. As well, it's relatively easy for large corporations to influence the policy environment to discriminate against small businesses and undermine competition; another source of wealth accumulation at the expense of wider society.

All this is not necessarily objectionable. I just think it unlikely that it soaring wealth inequality - its randomness, and its co-existence with rising inequality and extreme poverty - reflects society's wishes. My guess is that it conflicts with them. It's come about because we don't choose policy outcomes: even in democratic countries we choose politicians, political parties and base our choices on ideology, looks or reported and often distorted media images. Any correlation between what sort of society people actually want, and the society that arises, is almost accidental. Politicians and the elites can get away with this, because they can talk vaguely about economic growth, as if achieving that will mean that poor people will inevitably benefit. It mostly did in the past, but doesn't today:

Despite experiencing economic growth post-2020, a third of 160 countries analysed witnessed a surge in extreme poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most adversely affected region, with an average of 130,000 individuals per country moving into extreme poverty per percentage point of GDP growth each year. Growth without gains, UNDP, 16 October 2023

The implicit target of most governments is growth in GDP or GDP per capita. As we are not used to thinking in terms of coherent, explicit and verifiable policy goals, GDP has become a de facto target, though its weaknesses as an indicator of well-being are widely known. 

My suggestion, then, is that we start thinking about the sort of society we want. We could, for instance, explicitly target poverty, and reward people for achieving it. Social Policy Bonds would channel the market's incentives and efficiencies into doing just that: on a global scale, a mix of governments, supra-national bodies, philanthropists and ordinary people could all contribute to a fund that would redeem Human Development Bonds. At a national level, we could target unemployment, health, literacy and other indicators of poverty that either are themselves, or are inextricably linked to, poverty and deprivation. The very obvious benefit of applying the Social Policy Bond concept in this way is that we'd be increasing social well-being as efficiently as possible: the market for the bonds would see to that. There are other, less obvious benefits: transparency and stability of policy goals, as well as buy-in. But, even more relevant for this discussion is that a bond regime would channel wealth and wealth creation into projects that benefit the whole of society. People could still become rich - or even richer, but under a bond regime the would do so by diverting their expertise and capital into projects that benefit everybody. A further consequence of this is that other activities: those of zero or negative social benefit, could be more heavily taxed. There's much more about Social Policy Bonds and their benefits in the papers and books linked to on SocialGoals.com. All my work on the bonds can be downloaded for no charge. 

The unimportance of competence

There's a long list of criteria by which people judge for whom we'll vote, including: ideology, personality, public image (including looks), racial or religious identity, charisma, height, or simply how prominent a candidate is in the media. Way down the bottom of this list would be competence. This is partly because we rarely look back over candidates' records - nor even that of the administrations of which they were members. Admittedly, because of the large number of variables and society's complexity, it's difficult to ascribe outcomes to recent individual performance. I think we could do better.

I believe we'd all benefit if we were offered a choice of outcomes, rather than one of political parties or candidates, many of whom can get away with talking only vaguely about what they hope to achieve in office. A Social Policy Bond regime would do this; people would choose the outcomes they wish to target and their priority. This would have many benefits. First, it would change the way in which we judge administrations: competence would shoot up the list of criteria by which we judge an administration. Second, it would get us used to the notions of trade-offs and opportunity cost when choosing which goals we should target. Third, it would drastically shrink the role of government in allocating funding; not theoretically a goal in itself, but given the temptations and actual corruption scandals, even in relatively less corrupt countries, it would contribute to more efficient government. Under a bond regime, government would relinquish its role in allocating funding to public- and private-sector bodies: this would be done by investors in the bonds, whose over-arching goal would be the efficiency with which society's social and environmental goals shall be achieved. Markets, in economic theory and on all the evidence, are the best way of allocating scarce resources. But government would still have important roles doing things that only it can do: articulating society's goals and raising the revenue that would reward those who achieve them.  

There would be other benefits. Policymaking would be more transparent. And there'd be a far more direct link between stated policy objectives and the activities undertaken to achieve them. So that, say, if we collectively decide we want to do something about cleaning up the environment, an Environmental Policy Bond regime pay people to clean up the environment. If we want to reduce crime rates, we'd reward investors in crime reduction bonds only when crime rates have fallen. 

We need to target outcomes, rather than wait decades for government to agree on what's required and then make policy that might, or might not, do something to achieve it. What is important is not how our urgent social and environmental problems are solved, nor which body shall try to solve them, but that they are solved. Social Policy Bonds are one way of getting government to focus on what we as a society actually want to achieve and out of the business of identifying genuinely (or not) difficult scientific and social relationships. The first is something that democratic governments can actually do quite well. The second is something that markets do much better, because scientific and social relationships are complex and ever-changing, and because incentives are crucial. 

Videos or incentives: how best to end conflict

We often hear war correspondents say that they undertake their gruelling assignments so that others will come to realize the horror of armed conflict. I don't doubt their sincerity, nor their bravery in embedding themselves in military campaigns and recording the carnage that is the outcome of man's inhumanity to man. I do, however, doubt whether widely disseminated graphic reporting is the best way, or even an effective way, of bringing about an end to war. They may be the best we have come up with so far - but they have done nothing to end violent political conflict. Their graphic reports, pictures and (especially) videos probably inflame conflict more than they defuse it. 

Piling up weapons, unfalsifiable 'deterrence' doctrine, peace talks, talks about talks: these are roundabout methods of addressing our tendency to destroy others of our species and a big chunk of the natural environment too. They lack even the grim entertainment value of the reporters' images and commentary. Here's a question: if we are truly serious about ending armed conflict, why don't we reward the ending of armed conflict rather than the tried, tested and failed means of preventing it? Incentives matter, and the current incentives are all for arms merchants to sell more arms, for bureaucrats to engage in endless talks, for fanatics and governments to inflame aggressive religious and nationalistic passions. 

Humanity would benefit if there were countervailing financial incentives. The wish that almost everyone has, when we are not reacting to propaganda or provocation, to live in peace, has not been monetised and so, sadly, counts for very little when set against the interests of the weapons manufacturers, bureaucrats and ideological zealots. 

Which is where the Social Policy Bond concept, applied in the service of world peace, could make a contribution. Under a bond regime targeting a combination of such metrics for reduction as numbers of people killed and made homeless, people would be rewarded for the achievement of sustained periods during which wars are reduced or eliminated. 

World Peace Bonds would channel the market’s incentives and efficiencies into ending all violent conflict. Ideally, governments, institutions, the billionaire class and anyone else with a genuine interest in peace would contribute to a fund that would be used to redeem the bonds, which would create a coalition of interests with a powerful incentive to reduce the level of violent political conflict. Initial funding could be There would be difficulties defining peace and quantifying for targeting purposes the level of conflict. It would probably be more realistic to begin by issuing Nuclear Peace Bonds, which would entail rewarding, say, 30 years during which no nuclear device would be deployed and detonated in any sort of conflict - a more readily verifiable target than reducing the level of conflict in the world, though hopefully a stepping stone in that direction. For my recent book on World Peace Bonds, please see here, and there are more links to my work on conflict reduction here. 

Relying on metrics

In our complex, populous societies we're not going to escape the use of metrics as indicators of social well-being. Social Policy Bonds aim to target broad goals that are meaningful to ordinary people. They therefore need metrics that are carefully devised, robust, verifiable and, preferably, easy and cheap to monitor. A Social Policy Bond regime, ideally, would use reliable metrics in a considered, coherent manner. There are dangers in taking metrics as ends in themselves, in using them incoherently, and in ways that conflict with people's well-being. Unfortunately, that's the direction in which we're moving. Having read The tyranny of metrics by Jerry Muller, I've written about the limitations of metrics. 

 Our societies aren't going to return to the times when policy is made for groups of 150 (see Dunbar's number). It follows that metrics will be the means to determining how well society is doing. This has its risks, but it would seem preferable to letting ideology, emotion, personality or revenge psychology determine the direction in which societies move. 

 

One of the risks arises from Campbell's Law: 

The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. Campbell's Law

Some examples of the application of this Law are given here. Another recent example is described in a study of the Trump administration's efforts to present COVID-19 statistics that would discourage restricting economic activities and encourage reopening the economy. The problem is that there is no real alternative to quantitative indicators when trying to measure and improve society's well-being. The alternatives are using no measures at all, or using those that have no bearing on well-being or may even be in conflict with it. The latter approach is the most common on western democracies. Currently our governments rely on a motley array of narrow, short-term, Mickey Mouse micro-targets, including the over-arching, de facto target of Gross Domestic Product, with its many flaws, some of great consequence. 

A Social Policy Bond regime, by contrast, would target broad meaningful outcomes with indicators inextricably linked to what we wish to see. At the national level, we'd target improvements in society's mental and physical health; at the global level we could target indicators of adverse natural or man-made disasters. One urgent, and easy-to-monitor goal would be nuclear peace. Most other goals would be less easy to quantify reliably, but we do need to ask what are the essential elements of social and environmental well-being and how can we best target them reliably. Our current political systems allow our rulers to duck these questions and distract us all with spurious arguments about ideology, personality, image and sound bites.