markm:
And the specific mechanism is pretty obvious: give a nanny-stater an inch and he’ll take a mile.

As is the counter-mechanism. Give a nanny-stater an inch and solve the problem, and he has no problem to point to when he wants a mile. Next time he points to a problem and wants a mile, counter that an inch worked last time.

The point is that nanny-staters are getting miles because their inches don’t work. So we have to be smart and give them the right inch, if we have to give them an inch.

That is, the only practical strategy we have left to fight the nanny-staters it to make sure their policies *work*, so they won’t pile on more and more policies to “fix” the previous policies’ failures.

I’m not entirely clear what the “it” is. If you mean a strategy of generally endorsing nudges as a way of avoiding crass paternalism, then if my “b” cases above were to outweigh the “a” cases, the strategy would lead to more, not less, of the latter. If you mean endorsing nudges only in the “a” cases, my concern would be how well we really can distinguish the a’s from the b’s ex ante.

I would endorse nudges because I don’t believe there are any “b” cases left. If it can be regulated, it will be regulated and I’d prefer a regulation that is less awful.

Right. What about letting go of the military interventionism?

I’d settle for Congressional approval of every boot on the ground and every (manned) jet in the sky. Something along the lines of the War Powers Act (with appropriate exception in case the Congress is not formally convened…).

Slippery slope arguments are not simplistic claims that say, “If we do A, we will necessarily do B, C, and D.” They are probabilistic statements based on specific mechanisms.

And the specific mechanism is pretty obvious: give a nanny-stater an inch and he’ll take a mile.

If you want a gradual move towards Liberty, you might want to start planning a strategy to get there. And arguments like “this new law will work just as well if we let people intelligently opt out of it” might be a step in that direction.

…it seems better than letting crass paternalism run amok…

I’m not entirely clear what the “it” is. If you mean a strategy of generally endorsing nudges as a way of avoiding crass paternalism, then if my “b” cases above were to outweigh the “a” cases, the strategy would lead to more, not less, of the latter. If you mean endorsing nudges only in the “a” cases, my concern would be how well we really can distinguish the a’s from the b’s ex ante.

a conservative party that isn’t obsessed with antediluvian biblical norms seem to me essential

Right. What about letting go of the military interventionism?

Glen: I frankly don’t understand the commenters who say things like, “In just about every conceivable arena in which Libertarian paternalism is brought up, it’s a movement to less regulation and less government involvement than we have now.” It’s just not true. Read what Sunstein, Thaler, et al., have actually written, and you’ll find the new paternalism is virtually always used as either a justification of existing intervention or a wedge for further intervention.

I disagree. Since I have read what Sunstein and Thaler have actually written, I’ll post the chapter list from their book Nudge for all chapters dealing with actual policy proposals:

Save More Tomorrow
Naive Investing
Credit Markets
Privatizing Social Security: Smorgasbord Style
Prescription Drugs: Part D for Daunting
How to Increase Organ Donations
Saving the Planet
Improving School Choices
Should Patients Be Forced to Buy Lottery Tickets
Privatizing Marriage

My recollection is a little hazy, but of these chapters, the only ones you could point to as examples of advocating more coercion than what we currently have might be “Credit Markets” and “Saving the Planet.” As I said, though, my memory is hazy and maybe these chapters did not actually advocate coercion. The rest of the chapters talk about things like privatizing Social Security, keeping Medicare Part D insurance private, advocating school vouchers, gay marriage, voluntary medical malpractice waivers, and encouraging private employers to make 401(k) contributions the default with some specified default options.

Well, it’s one thing a) to try to substitute “nudges” for crass paternalism where the latter exists or was going to happen anyway, and quite another b) to allow nudges where crass paternalism might have been staved off, or to allow nudges to multiply the number of camel’s noses leading to more crass paternalism. I’m not sure how you can be confident that the a’s will outweigh the b’s.

I’m not, but it seems better than letting crass paternalism run amok, which is what I see happening.

And I don’t think the cause of liberty is well served by a defeatist attitude.

Acknowledging that we are, for the time being, in a position of weakness seems to me an uncontroversial statement of fact.

Or are you thinking defense-in-depth, strategic retreat until…well, until what?

At the very minimum, 2010. We aren’t going to make headway with this Congress. As to the “what”, a conservative party that isn’t obsessed with antediluvian biblical norms seem to me essential if you want anyone under 40 (many of whom are naturally draw to economic conservatism) as part of the coalition.

It involves using nudges instead of outright coercion in places where one of the two was going to happen anyway.
Again, if you seriously think there’s any chance of rolling back the regulatory state, more power to you. As a practical matter, damage-control is the best we can hope for.

Well, it’s one thing a) to try to substitute “nudges” for crass paternalism where the latter exists or was going to happen anyway, and quite another b) to allow nudges where crass paternalism might have been staved off, or to allow nudges to multiply the number of camel’s noses leading to more crass paternalism. I’m not sure how you can be confident that the a’s will outweigh the b’s. And I don’t think the cause of liberty is well served by a defeatist attitude. Isn’t that what you are offering? Or are you thinking defense-in-depth, strategic retreat until…well, until what?

There are dozens of obvious reasons not to think this would be the case. The most obvious is simply that a taxpayer-funded, mediocre solution will cloud out private, excellent solutions, much as public schools do in our country.

Another is that the level of disclosure in our markets may actually be above the market-optimal level.

The last is two forms of selection bias. When the government compels a company to disclose something, you think “wow, they didn’t disclose that”. But you don’t think about all the thousands of things companies disclose every day. Why does Ford tell me how many cylinders their cars have? What law requires this?

The other form of selection bias is that you see cases where regulation keeps a dangerous product off the market but not cases where it prevents a potentially life-saving product from entering the market. One of the medications I’m on was approved by the FDA more than three years after it was approved in Europe. When the FDA approved it, they bragged that it would save 35,000 lives per year. That is, they admitted that their safety rules killed over 100,000 people.

If we lived in a Communist world, the version of this same argument would be that we can’t trust private industry to run the food distribution network because what happens if you get to the private food distribution center for your city on your appointed day and they refuse your ration coupons? You could starve!

That’s not a version of the same argument, because it isn’t accompanied by the experience of private food distribution centers refusing ration coupons.

It’s one thing to suggest that a hypothetical won’t happen, it’s another to suggest that something that actually happens won’t happen.

yankee: In markets where health and safety information is known to producers/sellers but is not immediately apparent to buyers, sellers consistently do not provide such information. The information is provided only when mandated by law or where failure to do so could subject the producer/seller to liability. I’m not really interested in the sure-it-works-that-way-in-practice-but-does-it-work-that-way-in-theory line of argument.

If we lived in a Communist world, the version of this same argument would be that we can’t trust private industry to run the food distribution network because what happens if you get to the private food distribution center for your city on your appointed day and they refuse your ration coupons? You could starve!

The reason the FDA “clamped down” is that there were suggestions that the rosy picture being painted of Thalidomide was incomplete. And that the use for which it was being promoted most heavily was inappropriate. As it so happens, history bore out those misgivings.

Had European health services been a touch more cautious, Thalidomide would likely have been approved far earlier. Subject to the kinds of constraints now placed on its use from the get-go. Approval was a lot less palatable when the risk involved babies, and made for a spectacle when it was realized.

Maybe the answer is to make the researchers and those at the top of the drug companies personally financially liable if they screw up and people die as a result.

But when? The researchers at Grunerthal were operating under the then-prevalent assumption that drugs wouldn’t cross the placental barrier. L’Affaire Thalidomide helped disprove that assumption.

Unless you’re arguing for absolute liability, which I suspect would be a pretty strong incentive for researchers to develop new and improved flavors for aspirin and other known quantities rather than come up with new compounds. Testing does have to occur at some point, unless the risk disclosure is, “It might kill you, so you might want to try giving some to your cat before taking any yourself.”

I’m not saying that the FDA process is perfect. It is, however, supposed to ensure that (1) drugs sold to the public are reasonably safe, and (2) the risks drugs pose are understood well enough to be disclosed to consumers. When the side effects are especially nasty (or make them too much fun to take), drugs get restricted in ways that sometimes are wise and sometimes reflect other national priorities . The FDA doesn’t even require new compounds improve on what is available, after all, just that they not be deadly poisonous or expensive placebos.

In short, I disagree with you about drug testing, though I understand where you’re coming from. As I see it, the difficult question is determining which markets really need the kinds of restrictions posed by the FDA and which are better solved through disclosure (or through plain old tort law). I again have to disagree regarding the adequacy of tort law, as money is an inadequate substitute for the innocent victim whose injury is not subject to a realistic remedy. Money can replace money; we use it to replace arms and legs and the like because lex talionis is unpalatable.

And, hooray for OT.

You and a few other people have said that several times; the problem is, it isn’t true. LP does not involve substituting “nudges” in places where there was formerly coercion; it involves putting in “nudges” where they didn’t exist before. And sometimes, putting in outright coercion — see their proposed abrogation of employment at will for an example.

It involves using nudges instead of outright coercion in places where one of the two was going to happen anyway.

Again, if you seriously think there’s any chance of rolling back the regulatory state, more power to you. As a practical matter, damage-control is the best we can hope for.

David Nieporent: You and a few other people have said that several times; the problem is, it isn’t true. LP does not involve substituting “nudges” in places where there was formerly coercion; it involves putting in “nudges” where they didn’t exist before. And sometimes, putting in outright coercion — see their proposed abrogation of employment at will for an example.

Exactly!

David Nieporent: You and a few other people have said that several times; the problem is, it isn’t true. LP does not involve substituting “nudges” in places where there was formerly coercion; it involves putting in “nudges” where they didn’t exist before. And sometimes, putting in outright coercion — see their proposed abrogation of employment at will for an example.

I think that David is right here. I am happy when the government moves from control to nudges, but that is really unlikely. What is really being proposed is the government nudging where it hasn’t controlled before. In other words, new government intervention, not less old intervention.

TheBadness: Because Thalidomide made for such a rollicking good time over there in Europe?

I mean — I tend to prefer disclosure as a matter of course. It usually works quite well, so long as the disclosure consists of information the recipient is able to process effectively.

The problem is that, especially with medical risks, the sufficiency of information isn’t always such that it permits for a well-considered choice.

Let me suggest though that the cure may have been worse than the disease here. There have been a lot of medicines that took a long time as a result getting to market and saving lives and reducing suffering. Plus, the level of testing involved drives up the costs significantly of the prescription medicines involved, and therefore decreasing the number that finally make it into doctors’ hands. So, I may suggest that maybe, just maybe, a lot more people would have benefited if the FDA hadn’t clamped down than were saved from Thalidomide.

Plus, our tort system seems to work just fine in penalizing companies that bring defective or dangerous drugs to market. Maybe the answer is to make the researchers and those at the top of the drug companies personally financially liable if they screw up and people die as a result. That way, they wouldn’t be in a heads I win, tails I walk away sort of situation when it comes to trading off tort liability and profitability. (Hey, we probably should do that with securities too, for similar reasons, as we discovered this last year – having your own assets on the line is a much more powerful motivator for being a bit conservative, than having someone else’s money at stake).

Coercive paternalism never needed anything of the sort. The options are not LP or nothing, it’s LP or CP.

You and a few other people have said that several times; the problem is, it isn’t true. LP does not involve substituting “nudges” in places where there was formerly coercion; it involves putting in “nudges” where they didn’t exist before. And sometimes, putting in outright coercion — see their proposed abrogation of employment at will for an example.

I frankly don’t understand the commenters who say things like, “In just about every conceivable arena in which Libertarian paternalism is brought up, it’s a movement to less regulation and less government involvement than we have now.” It’s just not true. Read what Sunstein, Thaler, et al., have actually written, and you’ll find the new paternalism is virtually always used as either a justification of existing intervention or a wedge for further intervention. When challenged by libertarians, the new paternalists say, “Well, our approach could justify less intrusion in some cases.” But it’s only lip service, in response to a challenge. Then they go right back to advocating more intervention. For every case where they’ve advocated less intervention, I will give you three where they’ve advocated more.

For those who just don’t like slippery slope arguments, I urge you to read the actual literature on the subject, including Eugene Volokh’s excellent article. Slippery slope arguments are not simplistic claims that say, “If we do A, we will necessarily do B, C, and D.” They are probabilistic statements based on specific mechanisms. That’s why it’s possible for us to argue that new paternalist policies are more vulnerable to slippage than other policies.

Finally, for those who say new paternalism is “inevitable” because of the need for default rules. If that were true, then why would the new paternalists be spending so much time pushing their position? Again, read their actual academic work — and not just their PR spin articles. You’ll find they are advocating policies that go far beyond just manipulating default rules. (A more extensive response to the default argument is included in the article.)

For those interested, I will be posting a series of excerpts from the article on my blog, Agoraphilia.

http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-paternalism-on-slippery-slopes-part.html

On July 16, 1998, the FDA approved the use of thalidomide for the treatment of lesions associated with Erythema Nodosum Leprosum (ENL). Because of thalidomide’s potential for causing birth defects, the distribution of the drug was permitted only under tightly controlled conditions. The FDA required that Celgene Corporation, which planned to market thalidomide under the brand name Thalomid, establish a System for Thalidomide Education and Prescribing Safety (S.T.E.P.S) oversight program. The conditions required under the program include; limiting prescription and dispensing rights only to authorized prescribers and pharmacies, keeping a registry of all patients prescribed thalidomide, providing extensive patient education about the risks associated with the drug and providing periodic pregnancy tests for women who are prescribed it

Whoops!

Because Thalidomide made for such a rollicking good time over there in Europe?

I mean – I tend to prefer disclosure as a matter of course. It usually works quite well, so long as the disclosure consists of information the recipient is able to process effectively.

The problem is that, especially with medical risks, the sufficiency of information isn’t always such that it permits for a well-considered choice.

b) “nudges” won’t matastasize and morph into just another rubric for coercive paternalism.

Coercive paternalism never needed anything of the sort. The options are not LP or nothing, it’s LP or CP.

So, I would be far happier with the government providing us information as to the safety of drugs, than keeping needed drugs off the market so that the efficacy and safety can be triple, and quadruple checked, which people die or suffer as a result.

So, nudging as a retraction of government power is probably good. Nudging as an expansion, not really.

The questions are:

1. Which half?

2. Does the government have a privileged position in deciding which half?

Sure, for a short period in time, after a government program is put in place, the pure of heart may be able to run it. Maybe. But, soon, those running government programs are either unelected bureaucrats, or have some stake in the matter.

So, how do these new paternalists who try to nudge us in some direction that they think we should go handle the fact that they are inevitably destined for failure? Man is selfish, brutish, etc., and nudging most likely isn’t going to shift him enough to satisfy the nudgers. So, what do they do next? Walk away because their nudge didn’t work? Or just nudge a bit harder? My vote is the later, which is why the slippery slope is relevant.

David Schwartz: Why would that situation occur, considering it would create obvious competitive advantages for companies that provided more information and there are no significant obstacles to them doing so?

In markets where health and safety information is known to producers/sellers but is not immediately apparent to buyers, sellers consistently do not provide such information. The information is provided only when mandated by law or where failure to do so could subject the producer/seller to liability.

I’m not really interested in the sure-it-works-that-way-in-practice-but-does-it-work-that-way-in-theory line of argument.

Floridan: I don’t think government regulations are needed to overcome consumers’ “cognitive biases” so much as to deal with the fact that, absent regulations, there is virtually no way a consumer can be knowledgeable about the product he or she is purchasing.I’m not upset that there are health and quality-control regulations regarding the production of food and medicine, rather than “caveat emptor” signs at the grocery store and pharmacy.

Why would that situation occur, considering it would create obvious competitive advantages for companies that provided more information and there are no significant obstacles to them doing so?

And that quite often the “conventional wisdom” may be wrong (The policy prescriptors will of course most often act on the basis of the conventional wisdom).

Ain’t that the truth.

I would point out that this is true of conventional expert opinion, as well as the common wisdom of the Congress, or of the electorate. The mistakes of the experts are more subtle, though.

Floridan: I don’t think government regulations are needed to overcome consumers’ “cognitive biases” so much as to deal with the fact that, absent regulations, there is virtually no way a consumer can be knowledgeable about the product he or she is purchasing.

Well, then, the remedy for that shortcoming is to require more disclosure, not to restrict choices. A prime area where this could apply is in new drugs not yet approved by the FDA, but approved and being used in other countries. Rather that simply prohibit the use of these drugs in the US, why not simply require full disclosure to both the prescribing physician and the patient? After all, informed consent is enough for experimental surgical procedures, why not experimental drug treatments? I have no problem with requiring that all known relevant information be provided; I do have a problem with the government taking away my ability to make my own assessment of risks and benefits in order to make my own choice. And if I’m just too stupid or careless to read or heed the warnings given to me, the consequences ought to fall on my head, not shifted by a personal injury-tort system gone mad and run primarily for the benefit of contingent fee plaintiff’s lawyers.

David Welker: If we allow people to have any freedom at all, that will lead along a slippery slope to anarchy.If we allow people to eat meat, that will lead to a slippery slope and they will soon want to eat other people.If we allow people to own guns, that is a slippery slope and soon people will accumulate large arsenals and use them to destroy entire communities.I love slippery slope arguments. If you can’t actually argue against the policy, why not argue against something else?

Your theory collides with data – go back to 1000AD or 1000BC or whatever. You could eat whatever you could catch, possess whatever weapons you could obtain, etc. Eating long pig and offing fellow members of your own tribe without cause have never been commonplace, and once past small tribes people self organize governments in every society I have heard of. If there is a reason to think that history in this case does not predict the future you should articulate it.

The history of paternalistic government is less comforting – looking at the history of restrictions on smoking does show a slope that’s just a wee bit slick.

There may be hypos that will make your point, but I don’t think those three work.

I’m not sure what you’re asking about. While Coburn is certainly one of the very few who might decide to stop Reid, he is certainly not doing what I discussed, nor is anyone else.