tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post3718511087756596612..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Libertarian Paternalism and the Pantomime of the Rational ActorUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-60841435167928507692015-05-14T22:26:13.626-04:002015-05-14T22:26:13.626-04:00My apologies, thenMy apologies, thenMagpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-24209246515809927672015-05-14T18:49:23.286-04:002015-05-14T18:49:23.286-04:00Looks reasonable to me, S-man.
Magpie, I at least...Looks reasonable to me, S-man.<br /><br />Magpie, I at least made the point you think we missed in a comment well before you added yours. Not reading closely enough you were.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-70798684458823216122015-05-14T16:36:35.960-04:002015-05-14T16:36:35.960-04:00I am "in league with" Rizzo and Whitman ...I am "in league with" Rizzo and Whitman when they say, "Our claim is not that slippery slopes are the only objection to the new paternalism." Other than that, our main objections are quite different and -- to some extent -- incompatible. This is not to say that Rizzo and Whitman do not raise some reasonable caveats that I would agree with. They do. But agreeing on some points is not the same as fundamental agreement. I can agree with Thaler and Sunstein on many points as well.<br /><br />Rizzo and Whitman state that their main problem with the libertarian paternalist framework is that "it defines freedom of choice (and libertarianism) in terms of costs of exit, <i>without any attention to who imposes the costs and how</i> [emphasis in original]." The go on to make it clear that <i>they</i> define choice as corresponding to property and personal rights and public policy as a coercive abridgement of those rights.<br /><br />In other words, Rizzo and Whitman <i>agree</i> with Sunstein and Thaler's narrow framing of choice exclusively in terms of the cost of exit. This is essentially a marketplace definition of choice, as Albert Hirschman pointed out in <i>Exit, Voice and Loyalty</i>. Neither S&T nor R&W address the other element of choice, voice.<br /><br />I teach collective bargaining and assign the classic article on unions by Richard Freeman and James Medoff, "The Two Faces of Unionism," which employed Hirschman's exit/voice distinction. But I thought I would go to the original for definitions of exit and voice. Lo and behold! Hirschman address "misbehaving" 45 years ago in much richer terms than the current behavioral economics admits.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-74570837356913719242015-05-14T10:32:34.600-04:002015-05-14T10:32:34.600-04:00Barkley,
That's better. I did a Google search...Barkley,<br /><br />That's better. I did a Google search and came up with several of their articles featuring the slippery slope argument. But I'll look specifically at this article and give a response. My knee-jerk reaction was that there wasn't enough of an incline in LibPat idea to call it a "slope."Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-47360504803859976452015-05-14T04:27:57.059-04:002015-05-14T04:27:57.059-04:00Professors,
"In particular, I have not heard...Professors,<br /><br />"In particular, I have not heard anybody talking about using it to make people work longer hours as you summon up with your quotation from Engels."<br /><br />I don't wish to interrupt your discussion, but I think there is little misunderstanding about what Engels said in that quote.<br /><br />The "work" Engels is talking about is political work by party members among the people. Depending on your point of view, this work could be called propaganda, education, indoctrination, organization, conscientization.<br /><br />Engels is saying nothing more meaningful that this work (however you decide to consider it) is successful.<br /><br />CheersMagpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-57824765967028766312015-05-13T19:34:00.344-04:002015-05-13T19:34:00.344-04:00Mario J. Rizzo and Glen Whitman, "Little Brot...Mario J. Rizzo and Glen Whitman, "Little Brother is Watching You: New Patterns on the Slippery Slopes," Arizona Law Review, www.arzonalawreview.org/pdf/51-3/arizlrev685.pdf . rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-91969396613924586602015-05-13T16:36:50.654-04:002015-05-13T16:36:50.654-04:00"It argues that there's nothing wrong wit..."It argues that there's nothing wrong with markets, only with people, and the state's role is to make people fit for markets, not the other way about."<br /><br />Or, in Milton's words, "how to qualify and mould the sufferance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on their necks..."Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-84269017576201076002015-05-13T16:34:01.770-04:002015-05-13T16:34:01.770-04:00From "The kindly words of Nudge are Cameron&#...From "The kindly words of Nudge are Cameron's ideal veneer"<br /><br />Peter Wilby<br />Guardian, August 15, 2010<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/15/nudge-cameron-veneer-thaler-dogma<br /><br />"The Nudge approach isn't always wrong. Sometimes, even the most dirigiste lefties will admit that persuasion is better than outright bans, just as Nudge's authors admit there should be laws against, say, drink driving.<br /><br />"But "libertarian paternalism" bears the same theological relationship to Friedmanite economics (Milton Friedman was also a Chicago professor) as intelligent design does to creationism. It strips out the demonstrably false aspects of the doctrine and gives it a makeover. After the banking crisis, the belief that markets work perfectly was as unsustainable as the belief that God created the world in 4004BC. Nudge comes to the rescue, proposing ways to make markets work better without directly interfering with them, still less penalising those who grow rich from them. It discusses not the merits of privatising social security, but the best way of doing it. It considers why Americans aren't saving more for their retirement, without mentioning that, for the majority, real wages haven't risen in a decade. The premise is that if people act against their own best interests – by using drugs, eating junk, failing to save or taking out loans they can't repay – it is because of their individual behavioural flaws, not because of poverty, inequality or lack of hope.<br /><br />"Nudge, though written before the worst effects of the credit crunch were evident, came at a convenient moment for free-market capitalism. It argues that there's nothing wrong with markets, only with people, and the state's role is to make people fit for markets, not the other way about. Cameron's decision to embrace this philosophy gives the game away. Just as Thaler is a sanitised version of Friedman, so Cameron, for all the veneer of compassion and the recruitment of centre-left allies, is a better-scrubbed version of Margaret Thatcher, determined to continue a Tory project that was rudely interrupted 13 years ago."Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-22588199840608453552015-05-13T16:28:44.757-04:002015-05-13T16:28:44.757-04:00"You seem to quote Oliver approvingly who wor..."You seem to quote Oliver approvingly who worries about 'coercive paternalism' and 'behavioral regulation' arising from all these supposedly 'libertarian parernalistic' nudge policies."<br /><br />I quote Oliver approvingly because I think he raises a valid point, concisely. It's not the most important objection, in my view but it is a valid point. I could care less about Rizzo and Whitman. Haven't read them. The fact that they may agree with something Oliver said is of no significance (especially if you don't even bother to document your broad brush claim with specifics).<br /><br />For other critical assessments of LibPat, see Will Leggett, "The politics of behaviour change: nudge, neoliberalism and the state." Alan Walker and Steve Corbett, "The Big Society: A Critical Perspective." For an earlier history of Old and New behavioral economics, see E. Sent, "Behavioral Economics: How Psychology Made Its (Limited) Way Back Into Economics."<br /><br />Sent points out that the "new" behavioral economics uses "the rationality assumption of mainstream economics as a benchmark from which to consider deviations." <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/15/nudge-cameron-veneer-thaler-dogma" rel="nofollow">Wilby</a> claims the nudge "argues that there’s nothing wrong with markets, only with people, and the state’s role is to make people fit for markets, not the other way about."Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-70493464542273984942015-05-13T14:39:39.746-04:002015-05-13T14:39:39.746-04:00Sandwichman,
I agree that I misread the Engels qu...Sandwichman,<br /><br />I agree that I misread the Engels quote. He is not talking about capitalists nudging workers into working longer hours, but party leaders needing to work long hours to get workers to follow them. <br /><br />But otherwise, I see your view still pretty much like that of Rizzo and Whitman. You seem to quote Oliver approvingly who worries about "coercive paternalims" and "behavioral regulation" arising from all these supposedly "libertarian parernalistic" nudge policies. This is exactly Rizzo and Whitman, who not only do not want nudging of wealth capitalists, but of workers deciding how to allocate their pension funds or kids inclined to eat junk food at school.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-88967638850969941142015-05-13T10:29:20.908-04:002015-05-13T10:29:20.908-04:00"Your argument is substantially the same as t..."Your argument is substantially the same as theirs..."<br /><br />Barkley, there is not enough substance in that claim for me to even bother denying. Your reference in your first comment to the quote from Engels indicates a problem in reading comprehension. Maybe you think what I write is not important enough to read and understand. If that's the case STFU. But if you have any substantive comments based on a respectful reading and comprehension, you are welcome to offer them.<br /><br />Also, you don't seem to notice that my objection to the nudging is not that I think they are evil but that their paradigm will be ineffectual because it is fundamentally contradictory. Can you give me examples of libertarian paternalist policies aimed at nudging better behavior from the wealthy and powerful? To ask that question is to answer it.<br /><br />(wtf -- the stupid captcha made me call a salad roll a burrito to prove I am not a robot!)Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-52341552128450161282015-05-13T00:51:47.895-04:002015-05-13T00:51:47.895-04:00S-man,
Your argument is substantially the same ...S-man, <br /><br />Your argument is substantially the same as theirs, the only difference being that what you are each worried that the authorities might do with their awful nudging is somewhat different.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-84946756935810043612015-05-12T17:22:47.069-04:002015-05-12T17:22:47.069-04:00Hmmm, BJR writes:
Of course, I am sympathetic to b...Hmmm, BJR writes:<br /><i>Of course, I am sympathetic to behavioral economics, mostly because I think it is better at explaining how people, well, behave, than garden variety neoclassical economics.</i><br /><br />So there's garden variety neoclassical economics and then there's neoclassical modified by behavioral economics. That would be a dismal world, indeed.<br /><br />Speaking of Communism, this reminds one of China: one country thru thousands of years of history because everytime they got conquered they just turned the conquerors into Chinese.<br /><br />So if that's the way this works, bring on the Mongols, bring on the Manchu, Neoclassical economics will never die!Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-22734391140597755272015-05-12T13:09:20.008-04:002015-05-12T13:09:20.008-04:00Incidentally, Barkley, the series isn't finish...Incidentally, Barkley, the series isn't finished. The segment I was thinking of for today circles back to an earlier series of posts about media framing and the political economy of communications. Thaler and Sunstein didn't invent "nudging" the p.r. and advertising industry of the early 20th century did that. I don't consider them "evil-doers" I just don't see their approach as some kind of humanitarian policy breakthrough. It's the emperor's old rags.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-92191290509274448492015-05-12T12:00:59.041-04:002015-05-12T12:00:59.041-04:00Hmmm, Sandwichman, just in case you did not know y...Hmmm, Sandwichman, just in case you did not know you are in league with libetarians such as Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman who have been loudly denouncing Cass and Sunstein "nudge" policies as an evil door to that slipplery slope known as the Road to Serfdom. Yeah, maybe it is foot in the door that may yet get used for all sorts of anti-liberty nastiness, but so far it has been mostly about pretty mild-mannered stuff like nudging people to make wise saving for retirement decision or not smoking or eating less unhealthy foods.<br /><br />In particular, I have not heard anybody talking about using it to make people work longer hours as you summon up with your quotation from Engels. Rizzo and Whitman have other fears, but I must say that until I actually see some nudger pushing something Awful, I have a lot of trouble getting too worked up about all this.<br /><br />Of course, I am sympathetic to behavioral economics, mostly because I think it is better at explaining how people, well, behave, than garden variety neoclassical economics.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.com