)<\/span><\/p>\nOf course, the lecture, and especially the lecturer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answers to challenges from the audience, does a much better job of explaining it than I will in the next couple of paragraphs, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll give it a go.<\/p>\n
Libertarian vs. Paternalist<\/p>\n
So, part of pure Libertarianism might be thought of as keeping the government out of our daily choices. Let the government not interfere with our decisions, whether we choose to make good ones or bad.<\/p>\n
For example, the typical Libertarian would say that the government shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell me that I must save for my future. \u00c2\u00a0They shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tax me, only to invest the money and give it back to me when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m old. If I want to save, then that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my business. If not, also my business.<\/p>\n
The pure Paternalist might say that people need to be helped to make decisions that are in their interest. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been shown (over and over again) that people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t save enough, and end up much worse off than they would have been with just a little foresight. Government should do what it can to make sure that people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t screw themselves too badly.<\/p>\n
A sort of compromise might be a checkbox on the tax form that allows you the choice to give money to the government for saving. Most Libertarians would be ok with that idea. Most Paternalists would say it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go far enough.<\/p>\n
So what would a Libertarian Paternalist do?<\/p>\n
Libertarian PLUS Paternalist<\/p>\n
The Libertarian Paternalist is happy with giving the citizen the choice to save or not, but wants to make it a little more likely that people will save. (This is just an example, and for the purpose of argument, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re assuming that saving is in the best interest of the citizen.)<\/p>\n
So how does he do that, while retaining his Libertarian ideals? How does he push people into making one decision over another, without interfering with their choice?<\/p>\n
I think that the shortest way to say it is that the Libertarian Paternalist looks at how people make decisions, and uses that knowledge to leverage them into making ones that are in their best interest. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take away the choice, but he presents it in a way that will tend to produce the outcome he wants.<\/p>\n
For example, people tend to stick with whatever defaults they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re given, even if the default isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the best option. So people will tend not to check a box that changes the default. If the default is that the government doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t save for you unless you check the box, then people will tend to not save.<\/p>\n
The Libertarian Paternalist would say to change the default. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say to have the tax form read, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Check here if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want us to save for you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Again, people will tend not to check it. Therefore, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tend to save.<\/p>\n
The key here is that there has to be a default anyway. Either way, people are being pushed a little by their nature to not check the box. The Libertarian Paternalist just says to have that push go in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Another example is that people tend to more easily give up future earnings than current holdings. So rather than a tax box saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll pay more now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the box could say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, take a bit out of my future paychecks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Again, no choice is being taken away, but more people will choose to save.<\/p>\n
Anyway, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read this far, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably like the lecture, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m surely butchering. The guy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very clear and precise in his language, and he makes a good case. Go get it.<\/p>\n
[Update: The debate gets going. (<\/span>Link<\/a>)]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Princeton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153University Channel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (link on left of main page) provides all kinds of interesting, and free, lectures, round-table discussions, and other events, featuring the top thinkers in a broad array of fields. Big names and big brains. Each item is about an hour long, and sometimes the sound isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that great for the Q & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}