Libertarian Paternalism

Ludwig von Mises Institute ^ | 5/21/2008 | David Gordon

[SMCC1]

"Thaler and Sunstein have set themselves a seemingly impossible task. Paternalists maintain that it is sometimes justifiable to interfere with someone's freedom, if doing so will promote his own good. Smokers, putting aside the issue of secondary smoke, do not violate others' rights: they harm only themselves. Nevertheless, a paternalist about smoking would think it justifiable forcibly to prevent people from smoking. Libertarians deny that such interference is acceptable. Force may be used only in response to aggression....

[SMCC1]

The guy explains Thaler and Sunstein's proposition and then analyzes. Just thought it was interesting. Sunstein is friends with Obama and may be a Supreme Court pick.

[tbw2]

Is their argument that social manipulation via fines / taxes / denied rights is fine as long as they don’t totally make it illegal / impossible to do as you choose?

[frithguild]

Paternalistic libertarianism at work:

Actually, it sounds similar to compassionate conservatism, which has had the same result on our financial institutions as Serum 111 had on Alex DeLarge

[SMCC1]

I think that’s part of it, as long as they’re not excessive. Another example would be in Grocery stores where the products may be set up in a certain way. They’re argument would be that grocery stores should be set up so that healthy foods are more excessible than junk food, so that people would be “nudged” (perhaps even unconsciously) to pick up the vegetables instead of the cake.