Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | R | Regulation

A less oppressive paternalism.

Article Excerpt
NUDGE: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

304 pages; Yale University Press, 2008

In the last few years, much has been written about "libertarian paternalism," a fair amount of it contributed by University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler. Now comes Nudge, a book on that topic by Thaler and his Chicago colleague, law professor Cass Sunstein.

I started reading Nudge with my libertarian knife sharpened, looking for their answer to a particular question. (I don't mean the obvious question, "Isn't 'libertarian paternalism' an oxymoron?" Their earlier article in the American Economic Review had persuaded me that it isn't.) My question was this: If Thaler and Sunstein are really libertarian paternalists and not just paternalists, do they advocate changes to make existing paternalist government policies less oppressive? If so, then they are credible. If not, I thought, then they are probably coming up with one more tiresome rationale for making government our parent, albeit a particularly sadistic parent who keeps trying to throw us in prison.

I am happy to say that many of the policies they advocate in Nudge would reduce government oppression. In the areas of motorcycle helmet laws, school choice, medical malpractice, and marriage, their proposals would retain some government intervention, while moving us in a more libertarian direction.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

NEED TO NUDGE But why do they advocate any paternalistic policies at all? They answer that question in their first five chapters by laying out the difference between their model of people, whom they call "Humans," and the economists' model of people, whom they call "Econs." Whereas Econs evaluate every situation, judging...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!