The Illusion Of Freedom
Liberation Paternalism: Reconciling Two Extremes?
M. D. Kwak
THERE’S A NATURAL, PERHAPS EVEN FANATICAL AVERSION TO PATERNALISM (I’m looking at you gun-waving, free-speech-touting Republican Americans), and in many cases, this is perfectly justified. On days when I’m feeling particularly anarchist, I often find myself despairing at the violent tyranny of the Australian state, or Wiki-surfing despotic military dictatorships which were undeniably ‘paternalistic.’ Nevertheless, paternalism is engrained in Western liberal democracies; we outsource decision-making to the state all the time, we trust that our governments know what is in our best interests, and we assume that they will fulfil their mandate. I think this partly arises from the laziness of the average person willing to make the trade-off between complete freedom and crippling inconvenience but also an understanding that the libertarian assumption of “homo economicus” is deeply flawed. Many of us acknowledge that humans don’t possess an infinite ability to make rational decisions (just ask Braden when he’s drafting his Secretarial at 2AM the night it’s due). We’re aware of the existence of biases and misinformation, and human error. We’re incredibly susceptible to certain tricks or ‘hacks’ that exploit our decision-making. We tend to choose the default option (status quo bias), we tend to follow the pack (herd mentality), and we suck at evaluating our choices when they’re in comparison with alternatives (anchoring).
We love the taste or idea of freedom, but we also recognise there are barriers to us making good and rational decisions when we’re left to our own devices.
The libertarian inside of me is tempted to say: who cares? Irrationality and poor decision-making are a legitimate form of freedom and a meaningful expression of individual choice. The more sensible side of me would pose: if a person took a fatal drug due to false information provided about its properties, is that person’s decision a legitimate expression of their freedom, or are they the hapless victims of a fraud-induced murder?
Libertarian paternalism recognises the inherent problems with how our human brain works – and flips them on their head. Coined by behavioural economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, they propose that libertarian paternalism is paternalism in the sense that “it tries to influence choices in a way that will make choosers better off, as judged by themselves and libertarian in the sense that it aims to ensure that “people should be free to opt out of specified arrangements if they choose to do so”. The primary mechanism by which this ideology is implemented is through the notion of ‘nudges.’
A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviours in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. Nudges are not mandates and must be easy and cheap to avoid. In many cases, nudges use those “brain hacks” that were mentioned before to change thoughts and actions on a subconscious level. For example, setting the default to exploit status quo bias, is a typical example of a libertarian paternalism policy. Countries that have an “opt-out” system for voluntary organ donation experience dramatically higher levels of organ donation consent than countries with an opt-in system. Austria, with an opt-out system, has a consent rate of 99.98%, while Germany, with a very similar culture and economic situation but an opt-in system, has a consent rate of only 12 percent.
I like to think of it as paternalism, but where you don’t know you’re being tricked into doing the ‘right’ thing – or what the government wants you to do. The illusion of freedom is maintained as people feel the choices, they make are truly their own.
Immediately, this sounds very pernicious. Isn’t it manipulation if the government is tricking you into making socially optimal choices? And worst of all, doesn’t this take away the very self-awareness of people to know that they’re being coerced – and, by extension, their ability to resist and rebel and fight back?
The cynical paternalist might respond by pointing to the various ways we’re already coerced in society. From a young age, our mouldable brains are influenced by the environment around us (FOLLOW THE RULES!!); we’re often held back by the limitations of human biology and various cognitive dysfunctions. If the definition of freedom relies upon the complete absence of external influences on our behaviour, freedom is an impossibility to attain.
However, if the definition of freedom is the ability to choose otherwise, libertarian paternalism may very well be a legitimate framework. Although it may make it hard, or even near impossible, to choose the alternative option, opting out is still a feasible choice. And even if you don’t, it gives people the nice feeling that their decisions are indeed autonomous. Isn’t that good enough?
