In my most recent post on paternalism, I criticized claims that paternalistic policies can be justified on the grounds that government-appointed experts have greater knowledge than consumers and are less likely to be influenced to cognitive error. Among other points, I emphasized that government experts have no way of determining how much benefit consumers get […]
Tag Archives | Rule of Experts
Pitfalls of Paternalism
By Ilya Somin on October 14, 2009 12:43 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
In recent years, advocates of paternalistic policies, such as economist Richard Thaler, argue that government-appointed experts should limit the choices available to consumers in order to prevent them from making poor decisions because of ignorance or cognitive bias. After all, they claim, experts are likely to know better than ordinary consumers which products are too […]