An previous post dealt with Kahneman’s description of predictably non-rational behavior. In Nudge Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler offered a proposal, based on Kahneman’s ideas, that they call “libertarian paternalism.” The idea is that choice architects, people setting up alternatives for other people to choose among, can and should take advantage of the predictable errors of the fast mind to nudge the chooser into making the choice the architects think he ought to make, the one they believe he would make if he were fully rational. It is paternalism because it is getting people to act as someone else thinks they ought, libertarian because it leaves the individual free to act in a different way.
There's already a lot more of this "libertarian paternalism" going on than most people realize. Lots of things that most Americans think are prohibited can be opted-in.
Want to invest in private equity, but you're not a "qualified investor"? Form a LLC, fund the LLC, then have the LLC invest.
Want to buy narcotics legally? You just need to find the right doctor....
Most of this is easier to do if you have money to spend on it. In a real sense, rich people are allowed to do stuff that everyone else isn't (the qualified investor thing even makes it official).
Regarding university fees, I had a much better experience at the University of Illinois: they sent me an itemized bill with the optional fees marked; I could uncheck whichever ones of them I wanted before paying it (or, well, giving it to my parents to pay). If I remember correctly, I think I unchecked about half of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if Oberlin's being a private school, and U of I a state school, has something to do with the difference?
"any time you are offering someone else choices...you are...engaging in choice architecture. If you are going to do it you ought to do it in a way designed to produce the result you want to produce"
This point is not as obviously true as it might first appear. The opposite of Intelligent Design is not Stupid Design; it's Natural Evolution or Spontaneous Order. While it's true that any choice has an associated (at least implicitly) choice architecture, if that choice architecture was not explicitly designed by a choice architect, then it arose through natural evolution. It's not obviously true that an intelligent choice architect's interventions will necessarily improve matters for all the usual Hayekian and Chesterson's Fence reasons. The burden of proof really falls on the would-be Intelligent Designer to first understand why the existing choice architecture might have evolved in the manner that it did and to demonstrate that the proposed re-design of the choice architecture would likely make things better. David gives many reasons here why such Intelligent Re-Design might not.
The key is that the people running the institutions have to have the best interest of their employees/students/citizens/customers in mind. Making lots of decisions all the time is annoying. It would be better to make one big decision about which institution to trust. It’s sad that the government has crowded out the mutual aid societies, that’s the institution that should be handling these kinds of decisions, about retirement funds and what-not. The big question is: if your values don’t align with Oberlin college then you can’t just relax into the paternalism, you have to question everything and swim against the tide. It’s really exhausting.
I find it ... odd ... that "libertarians" are far more concerned with an optional charge of $10 than with the campaign by Tucker Carlson and friends to declare war on trans people. I guess "liberty" only matters when it comes to your own wallets.
There's already a lot more of this "libertarian paternalism" going on than most people realize. Lots of things that most Americans think are prohibited can be opted-in.
Want to invest in private equity, but you're not a "qualified investor"? Form a LLC, fund the LLC, then have the LLC invest.
Want to buy narcotics legally? You just need to find the right doctor....
Most of this is easier to do if you have money to spend on it. In a real sense, rich people are allowed to do stuff that everyone else isn't (the qualified investor thing even makes it official).
Regarding university fees, I had a much better experience at the University of Illinois: they sent me an itemized bill with the optional fees marked; I could uncheck whichever ones of them I wanted before paying it (or, well, giving it to my parents to pay). If I remember correctly, I think I unchecked about half of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if Oberlin's being a private school, and U of I a state school, has something to do with the difference?
"any time you are offering someone else choices...you are...engaging in choice architecture. If you are going to do it you ought to do it in a way designed to produce the result you want to produce"
This point is not as obviously true as it might first appear. The opposite of Intelligent Design is not Stupid Design; it's Natural Evolution or Spontaneous Order. While it's true that any choice has an associated (at least implicitly) choice architecture, if that choice architecture was not explicitly designed by a choice architect, then it arose through natural evolution. It's not obviously true that an intelligent choice architect's interventions will necessarily improve matters for all the usual Hayekian and Chesterson's Fence reasons. The burden of proof really falls on the would-be Intelligent Designer to first understand why the existing choice architecture might have evolved in the manner that it did and to demonstrate that the proposed re-design of the choice architecture would likely make things better. David gives many reasons here why such Intelligent Re-Design might not.
The key is that the people running the institutions have to have the best interest of their employees/students/citizens/customers in mind. Making lots of decisions all the time is annoying. It would be better to make one big decision about which institution to trust. It’s sad that the government has crowded out the mutual aid societies, that’s the institution that should be handling these kinds of decisions, about retirement funds and what-not. The big question is: if your values don’t align with Oberlin college then you can’t just relax into the paternalism, you have to question everything and swim against the tide. It’s really exhausting.
I find it ... odd ... that "libertarians" are far more concerned with an optional charge of $10 than with the campaign by Tucker Carlson and friends to declare war on trans people. I guess "liberty" only matters when it comes to your own wallets.