[lbo-talk] 'Nudge' policies are another name for coercion - New Scientist

Sean Andrews cultstud76 at gmail.com
Thu Nov 10 14:02:20 PST 2011


On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 11:55, Sean Andrews <cultstud76 at gmail.com> wrote:


>
>
>
> This points to the key problem with "nudge" style paternalism: presuming
>> that technocrats understand what ordinary people want better than the
>> people themselves. There is no reason to think technocrats know better,
>> especially since Thaler and Sunstein offer no means for ordinary people to
>> comment on, let alone correct, the technocrats' prescriptions. This leaves
>> the technocrats with no systematic way of detecting their own errors,
>> correcting them, or learning from them. And technocracy is bound to
>> blunder, especially when it is not democratically accountable.
>>
>
>
> The technocrats in question are inevitably GOVERNMENT technocrats. The
> CORPORATE technocrats who have far more of a role in shaping the so called
> democratic system get a free pass because, hey, people get to CHOOSE what
> brand of poison they are absorbing there. If it happens that they
> generally choose the default, the so much better for the oligopoly.
>
>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list