DISQUS

Seth Finkelstein · 1 year ago

Oh, that's hilarious ("Civility Check"). Hey, why not have someone implement it, and let The Free Market decide, huh, huh, huh? If I want to buy Civility Check software, who are you, Mr. Libertarian, to tell me I shouldn't be able to do that? You've violating my rights! :-)

Hmm ... "And thankfully I don’t have a civility check system running on my machine right now so I can immediately post that thought!" ... self-proving? self-refuting? :-) :-)

dm · 1 year ago

"Horribly elitist". What's wrong with this elitism, exactly?

As to the opt-out retirement thing, it's an excellent idea (and has proven to be successful). It just leaves you free to be stupid (and opt out of retirement savings) instead of leaving you free to be wise (and opt in to retirement savings). If this be paternalism, make the most of it.

As to the civility check, yes, that does seem a little silly. Except, didn't Eudora have such a thing (I remember hot-pepper icons)? Maybe that was just on incoming mail.

MikeT · 1 year ago

The idea is not entirely without merit, provided it is done outside of the state. My employer by default starts all new hires out with a 2% contribution to the conservative investments in its 401K. You can opt-out if you know what you are doing, but this sort of paternalism does help new hires out of college, many of whom are irresponsible with saving for retirement.

I've been investing since I got out of college, and in 2.5 years, I've saved quite a bit by voluntarily doing between 6-8% of my paycheck, but some of my coworkers think it's stupid. Why? They don't care that I am getting an addition few thousand bucks a year invested for me, all they know is that that additional money out of their paycheck can't go to fun stuff like big TVs and video games.

The sad truth is that these sort of people will be the ones whining and complaining 20 years from now about how expensive the cost of living is, and how they'll never be able to retire. Now, this'd be no problem in a society in which they can't vote, but since they can vote, it's probably good that our employer is nudging them in a direction that will make them less likely to end up destitute later on in life.

Be all that as it may be, libertarian paternalism will invariably require even more government, and in that sense, I think it certainly disqualifies the "libertarian" adjective in any meaningful sense of the word.

dm · 1 year ago

It's not possible for "the government to stay out of 401K", since they're creations of the government to begin with. Encouraging employers to make them opt-out, instead of opt-in doesn't really make any difference to anyone's freedom.

AlexHarris · 1 year ago

Sunstein's original article on "libertarian paternalism" (American Economic Review, May 2003) discussed exactly the sort of employer savings plans that libertarians would have no objection to. If I sign a contract with an employer saying that I'll work there, the company will pay me so much, and the company will also put 2% of my pay in a 401(k), that's totally fine. The original article simply pointed out that sometimes defaults are necessary - but it didn't involve state action at all. It's interesting that he apparently now equates such innocuous actions as employer savings with state-mandated civility. One is definitely libertarian. The other is definitely paternalism. I'm not sure if either action fits both categories.

waynecrews · 5 months ago

Adam, thanks for this, clicked it while reading your Zittrig post, and you know how i feel about *that* worldview. In any event, the Senate hold on Sunstein's appointment to head OMB's OIRA has been lifted, so he's likely to be confirmed. Republicans think his favorable attitude toward cost-benefit analysis for regulation is a good thing; But as "nudging" implies, there's little regulators can cook up that they won't regard as net-beneficial, and worthy of imposing on others. The world is there for them to lord over; we are all people things are done to.