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28 March, 2019<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/standpointmag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/books-whyte-cover.jpg\" "\\"Feature")
<\/p>\nLast year I went jogging in the London neighbourhood I had just moved into. It ended up being a longer run than I had planned because I got lost. According to Cass Sunstein, this happened because I was unfree:<\/p>\n
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When life is hard to navigate, people are less free. They are unable to get where they want to go. The challenge arises not only when we are looking for literal destinations . . . but also when we are seeking some kind of outcome (good health, a visa, a decent place to live). Obstacles to navigability . . . create a kind of bondage.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
All my disappointments are put in a new light. Never mind that jogging irritation. I wanted to get my school\u2019s top mark in maths. But I didn\u2019t because I couldn\u2019t answer more questions correctly than Jacqui Thompson did. Bondage! And who bound me? It was Jacqui Thompson, who enslaved me by studying so hard. I am considering legal action against her.<\/p>\n
I now seek the outcome of being very rich but, since I have been unable to find my way to that destination, it seems I have been denied a freedom enjoyed by Richard Branson. That\u2019s unfair. Why should he be free to be rich while I live in bondage? The European Court of Human Rights will be hearing from me.<\/p>\n
Amazon\u2019s puff for\u00a0On Freedom<\/em>\u00a0says that Sunstein takes a \u201cpathbreaking\u201d approach to the subject. In fact, confounding ability with freedom is an old mistake. It has been around so long that when Friedrich Hayek wrote\u00a0The Constitution of Liberty<\/em>\u00a0in 1960, he devoted several pages to debunking the already familiar idea.<\/p>\n
How could Sunstein, a distinguished professor of law at the University of Chicago, have come to embrace this tired old mistake, with its absurd implications?<\/p>\n
Along with the 2017 Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler, Sunstein is the author of the best-selling\u00a0Nudge<\/em>, first published in 2009. The book recommends what Sunstein and Thaler sometimes call \u201clibertarian paternalism\u201d, whereby the \u201cchoice architecture\u201d people face is designed to encourage them to do the right thing. Critics have doubted that paternalism can ever be libertarian. By conflating freedom with the ability to get what is good for you, Sunstein can reply that, in fact, nudging increases freedom.<\/p>\n
Sunstein\u2019s previous, more sensible position was that nudging does not decrease freedom.<\/p>\n
Consider a UK policy much admired by Sunstein. Employers are legally obliged to enrol new employees in a pension scheme. Because people have a \u201cstatus quo bias\u201d which inclines them to go with the default option, this policy increases the number of people who enrol in pension schemes. But it does not reduce their liberty, because they are free to opt out. If the default were no enrolment, and employees needed to opt into a pension scheme, they would be no more free. But fewer people would enrol in pension schemes. Since there must be some default option \u2014 enrolling or not enrolling \u2014 you might as well apply the choice architecture (the default option) that encourages the right choice.<\/p>\n
If you consider only employees, there is indeed no loss of freedom. But what about the employers, whom Sunstein never mentions? They are legally obliged, on threat of financial penalties, to auto-enrol employees in pension schemes. This restricts their liberty. And auto-enrolment is only one of many such obligations Sunstein wants governments to place on business owners. He apparently agrees with the view, now standard across the UK political spectrum, that private businesses should be compelled to act as agents of the government\u2019s social agenda. This may or may not be a good idea; we can\u2019t get into that here. But it isn\u2019t any kind of libertarianism.<\/p>\n
Nor is nudging paternalistic. Consider just one obvious problem. Saving for retirement isn\u2019t the only thing that wise people claim the befuddled ordinary man does too little. For example, some say that people would benefit from reading more books. If employers auto-enrolled their employees in book clubs, deducting \u00a310 from their weekly pay for the purpose, inertia would mean few opt out and people would read more.<\/p>\n
Exercise too. Exercise is good for you. Many people have a behavioural bias (physical laziness) that prevents them from exercising. Employers should be forced to auto-enrol their employees in gyms. And lingerie. Expensive lingerie is exciting and improves people\u2019s sex lives. Many people have a behavioural bias (embarrassment) that stops them from purchasing the correct amount of lingerie. Five per cent of employees\u2019 pay should be received in the form of lingerie, unless they opt out.<\/p>\n
And, and, and . . . I could easily allocate the entirety of anyone\u2019s income in this way. It\u2019s crazy, of course. I will never get the allocation right because I cannot know the preferences and circumstances of the people I am nudging. Choosing always involves trading off. If you save more, you can spend less now. If you eat only healthy food, you must forgo some tasty food. If you spend \u00a3500 on a suit, that\u2019s \u00a3500 worth of other good stuff you cannot buy.<\/p>\n
Governmental \u201cchoice architects\u201d might know that it\u2019s good to save or to be healthy, but they cannot know that they are better than living it up today or enjoying the great taste of Coke. Which is what they need to know before they start nudging anyone in any particular direction. It is astonishing that in a book about decision making, the expression \u201ctrade-off\u201d makes not a single appearance.<\/p>\n
The reason may be that Sunstein believes that his choice architects can know \u201cdirectly\u201d \u2014 that is, without any knowledge of an individual\u2019s preference or circumstances \u2014 \u201cwhat kind of life is best\u201d. How they can know this is not explained, but never mind. Tristram and Chloe and their colleagues at Number 10\u2019s Nudge Unit (it already exists!) will sit around and decide what is the best kind of life. Or perhaps they will receive a memo from the Prime Minister. And then they will force private businesses to provide choice architectures that promote this best life.<\/p>\n
The means may be modest and gentle compared to the social engineering of the Soviet Union or Mao\u2019s Cultural Revolution. But the conceit, the ethical arrogance, is just as appalling.<\/p>\n
On Freedom<\/strong>
\nBy Cass Sunstein<\/em>
\nPrinceton, 136pp, \u00a39.99
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