I came across this interview with US academic Cass Sunstein, whose views on behaviouralism – including the area known as “behavioural economics”, have been immensely influential on governments in the past 25 years or so.
The idea of “nudging” people via policies to doing certain things (auto-enrolment in savings for retirement, messaging about the dangers of certain lifestyles, etc) has become a default piece of wisdom. It accords with the tendency of a managerialist political class that sees the wider population as only partially rationally self-interested. Sunstein, as shown in this video (conducted by the Hoover Institution in the US) notes how he disagreed with the Chicago-based economics folk such as Nobel Prize winner George Stigler and others about the idea of rational expectations. The behavioural school thinks that human motivation is not like that; in the financial services space, for instance, there is a school of thought known as behavioural finance that looks at crowd behaviour in times of stock market booms, busts, etc. And there are temptations to try and “fix” these behaviours.
I see a few dangers, and maybe Sunstein does too now (it is worth seeing the whole video). For example, it is easy to see how a government, even if democratic and accountable, can grow into a monster if driven by even well-meaning people that think that people aren’t necessarily fully rational, and need to be nudged, or guided, into doing the “right thing”.
This helps explain, in some ways, why the “administrative state” is what it is. It would not have got so big had it been a clearly evil project. Most people who drive all these changes and programmes think they are doing the right thing. Some might be bad but most aren’t. And yet here we are, with a bloated set of governments in the West, with skyrocketing debt and all the rest of it.
I think a major flaw in behavioural economics is the hubris of the “nudge” advocates about how they think they can handle all this. And as we have seen, politicians who lean towards tax-and-spend policies love some of these ideas because they can sit alongside what they want to do anyway. I am not even sure it makes sense to describe these as “liberal” because some of this “nudge” stuff does not seem to accord with ideas about treating people as individuals who need to be held accountable for their actions.
It is arguable that the “nudge” crowd hew to a form of soft determinism, or maybe “soft paternalism” – the notion that we are not really volitional creatures with agency, but buffeted by internal and external forces, and often emotional first, rational second. But even if that latter point is true, a rational person with choice-making capacity can realise that he or she is prone to making unwise/foolish choices, and like Odysseus who lashed himself to a mast to avoid being tempted by the Sirens, adopt rules and protocols to not screw up. (I know an alcoholic who avoids parties and certain events to avoid getting into trouble, to give one example. Another might be a stockbroker who turns off the noise of the daily news and makes better investment decisions over the long run.)
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and all that.
“I think a major flaw in behavioural economics is the hubris of the “nudge” advocates about how they think they can handle all this.”
There is also the Hubris of thinking that they know better than me about how to run my life. They see themselves as being more intelligent and better informed than me when most of them are deluded and as thick as mince.
If I were to lumber myself with a political label it would be ‘classic liberalism’. From Wikipedia:
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech. Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.
I used to think the Conservatives were the closest to this ideal but recent events have cause me to consider them as much closer to something like social liberalism. Social policies, taxation and involvement in the lives of individuals plus regulation seem to be common to most main parties in the Western world.
We are perhaps seen as a flock to be managed – and I don’t like it. Plus it is becoming more and more difficult to opt out.
It seems Jonathan Pearce can’t seem to find current newsworthy things happening in the UK to talk about. May I suggest this (a brave Dundee lass is involved):
https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/crime-rates-and-lying-politicians?r=7yrqz
“nudge” always ends up as SHOVE.
As Mr Ed pointed out, the sheer length and complexity of the Covid lockdown regulations shows they must have been, at least in part, written before the virus – in short the virus was used as a justification (uncharitable people would say as an excuse) for ideas that had been floating about long before it, perhaps to see what the people could be made to accept. By the way, in case anyone does not know, the lockdowns did NOT reduce deaths – and were never intended to do so.
It would be nice to think that this was paranoia or conspiracy theory – but the international community, in their various conferences and so on, have made it quite clear that they want every aspect of life controlled by governments and partner corporations (Agenda 2030 – and all the rest of it), and if “nudging” will not serve, they are quite happy to SHOVE – to take the velvet glove off the iron fist.
It is true that in some countries the government has not signed on to all this agenda – indeed opposes some, or all, of the agenda. But the United Kingdom is not such a country – here the establishment is committed to the international agenda of total control of the lives of ordinary people.
Note, for example, that there was no real opposition, in British establishment circles, to the recent World Health Organisation agreement – giving even more power to this organisation.
In future people are to live in their little rented apartments, in their 15 minute cities, with their electric car (if they are lucky enough to have one – remember the national grid will not be able to support most people having such a thing) computer controlled so it will not go too far – and will not go into areas that the ruling class (to use a term that Snorri uses – and not unreasonably) do not want them to go into.
Entertainment will be approved entertainment – which will carry “Positive Messages”, and people will be prevented from reading dissent on the internet (as dissent is “disinformation” and creates an “unsafe environment” – that makes people in “vulnerable groups” terrified of “harm”), and many (most?) people will depend on a “basic income” provided by the state – which can, like their accommodation, be withdrawn if they are a problem. This “money” will have to be spent in a certain period of time, and and on certain things (not science fiction – there are experiments, backed by the international community, in several countries already).
Cash will be banned – all money will be electronic and controlled, everything that people do with this electronic “money” will be known by the state and partner corporations (this will “protect the children” and so on).
Food will be produced synthetically.
“Will the new society work?”
Of course it will not work – it will collapse (collapse horribly), but the international establishment are committed to it.
The specific example that Cass Sustein gives (to show that humans are not really people – not really reasoning agents) namely stock market booms-and-busts – carefully ignores the fact that these are NOT caused by “animal spirits” (as Lord Keynes, falsely, claimed) – but are caused by Credit Money.
Cass Sustein does not say this, because to admit that Credit Money (rather than his fellow citizens not being fully human – as he pretends they are not) is the cause of boom-busts would be to admit that the monetary and financial order is institutionally corrupt.
And people like Cass Sustein do not want that to be widely known.
Henry Cyulski.
The reason that Johnathan Pearce has not commented on the case you mention is because the facts are not fully known yet – and to make the slightest mistake in reporting such a matter, especially as it involves a child, could send a person to prison in Britain – indeed even if you do not make any factual mistakes in your commenting on such matters, you can end up in prison here.
I might comment on all sorts of things – but then I do not care if I go to prison, or if I die for that matter (that is NOT courage – courage is when someone who desperately wants to live chooses to risk, or sacrifice, their life). But Johnathan Pearce has a life – and does not want to throw it away without some real chance of his sacrifice having an a real chance of doing some good.
He is rationally brave – rather than filled with suicidal despair.
Paul Marks, all I can say is WOW, is it really that bad.
Henry, you may be trying to be constructive in suggesting things to write about. But I write about what interests me. This is a current affairs blog, but so much more than that.
Thank for your attention in this matter!
Henry Cybulski.
Sadly – yes it is that bad Sir.