At first blush, Thaler and Sunstein seem to be proposing that voluntarily helping people to overcome or cope with their rash, ignorant, impulsive selves be called “libertarian paternalism.” Such semantics would only cause confusion and introduce new terminology for things already well served by ordinary language. Upon closer reading, however, we find that they maintain an unconventional distinction between coercive and non-coercive (or voluntary) action, while never making clear how they distinguish coercive from non-coercive action. I suggest that “libertarian paternalism” is really a depredation upon the very distinction between coercive and voluntary action.
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Article provided by Atlas Economic Research Foundation in its journal Econ Journal Watch.
Volume (Year): 1 (2004) Issue (Month): 2 (August) Pages: 260-271 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
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Find related papers by JEL classification: A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
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