Along with the Graduate School of Business' Richard Thaler, his co-author for the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Cass Sunstein recently published two op-eds touching on the topic of that book. The first, in the April 2nd Los Angeles Times, gives a broad overview of the idea of libertarian paternalism that Sunstein and Thaler advance in their book; the other, in the April 6 Chicago Tribune, focuses on how libertarian paternalism might be applied to the problem of climate change. Since Cass' ideas about this topic have come up frequently on this blog (see here, here, here, and most recently here), we thought it might be interesting to let the readers of the Faculty Blog chime in on these pieces.
Edited to Add: Cass and his co-author, Richard Thaler, have a blog on Nudge-related topics that those interested in this topic might enjoy.
My mother use to call it 'friend persuasion' to go in the direction she has chosen for me.
When it didn't fit my personality some years later, I rebelled against her for suggesting that because we had a mother/daughter relationship I would find her direction more appealing for myself, when exactly the opposite occurred. It was less appealing.
I was more responsive to academic challenges and inquiries in my young life than she was in her adult life.
Mom was more in favor of keeping her interests close if she had any, so as not to threaten herself, friends, or sisters and brothers by attempting to reach beyond her self-imposed limits. One might say she feared failure more than she feared her limitations.
I saw no limits I couldn't handle, having a bullish personality, and I had no brothers and sisters to worry about or reign me in, in spite of my cousins who also shared a lowly existence. Expect a certain cousin who was a genius at 4 years of age, no one ever questioned why such an old line of Americans didn't get a higher education before him. Most likely reason was the cost of an education would not be an easy investment to recoup to these depression era people.
My rule is not sound economics in light of the Great Depression, but "never should a superior limit or discourage an inferior to stay within the superior's own realm of interests, simply because the inferior's position will change quickly and may want to exceed the boundaries imposed on them by a superior.
These are lockdown policies of carrying someone on your shoulders, when they can walk, run, and jump themselves and can carry hundreds of people on their shoulders. Simply overestimating or underestimating human talent fitting one-size.
This paternalism is oppressive, and stifles personalties, invention, creativity, and knowledge.
Its evil can resemble 'the Dark Ages.' The Roman Catholic Church believed in a one world view too.
If this is about a banker opening up a savings account for you that you can cancel at your whim, no harm is expected but someone's inconvenience.
And there too the inconvenience can cause a person an unnecessay hurdle at the worst time.
Obesity fears allows a governor to tax soda pop, like fears over alcoholism taxes alcohol and lung cancer taxes tabacco.
What is the harm in this?
Well, if you ever knew a person committed to alcohol, tabacco, or food, you know taxing the stuff doesn't really stop them unless they find a greater need in saving their money then saving their habit. Thats who they see themselves as being and they have a need to maintain the self no matter how distructive it may be to themselves personally.
In my life I only heard one person say that they stopped smoking because the price of cigarettes went up. And she now has dementia.
I never hear someone say they would stop eating to pay off their consumer debt, or they would stop drinking so they could stay conscience and alert over their finances.
Therefore, I believe the paternalism premise is flawed.
When coercion is accepted as favorable, then paternalism has a willing audience.
People know it when they see it and everyone joins in the program, like physical fitness and health foods craze.
People distrust requirements to be too polite as subserviant behavior and someone else's reactionary demands for their own benefit and not allowing others to opt-out of subserviant behavior without being critize a jerk or goof for being not polite even rude.
Naturally what did you expect from someone who admires paternalism in its heroic forms, but is not a fan of it substituting as "the yellow brick road," or institutionalize thinking, like the Pentagon's culture.
Posted by: Joan A. Conway | April 10, 2008 at 07:12 PM
Default rule
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In legal theory, a default rule is a rule of law that can be superseded by a contract, trust, will, or other legally effective agreement. Contract law, for example, can be divided into two kinds of rules: default rules and mandatory rules. Whereas the default rules can be modified by agreement of the parties, mandatory rules will be enforced, even if the parties to a contract attempt to override or modify them. One of the most important debates in contract theory concerns the proper role or purpose of default rules.
The idea of a default rule in contract law is sometimes connected to the notion of a complete contract. In contract theory, a complete contract fully specifies the rights and duties of the parties to the contract for all possible future states of the world. An incomplete contract, therefore, contains gaps. Most contract theorists find that default rules fill in the gaps in what would otherwise be incomplete contracts. This is often stated pragmatically as whether a court will imply terms so as to save a contract from uncertainty.
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Default Rules tries to close loop holes in incomplete contracts that may be illegal in themselfs, such as the product has deficiencies and a 'razor and blands' type product has mandatory rule that once initiated into the original product, such as air time into a cell phone, only the cell phone can be returned. But the air time is useless in a cell phone that has defects on arrival.
Posted by: Joan A. Conway | April 28, 2008 at 02:36 PM