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Related Link » THE RISE OF THE NEW PATERNALISM (LEAD ESSAY)
“For as far back as memory reaches, people have been telling other people what’s good for them — and manipulating or forcing them to do it. But in recent years, a novel form of paternalism has emerged on the policy stage. Unlike the ‘old paternalism’, which sought to make people conform to religious or moralistic notions of goodness, the ‘new paternalism’ seeks to make people better off by their own standards. New paternalism … arose from the burgeoning field of behavioral economics, which studies the myriad ways in which real humans … deviate from pure rationality. Real people suffer from a variety of cognitive biases and errors, including lack of self-control, excessive optimism, status quo bias, susceptibility to framing of decisions, and so forth. To the extent such imperfections cause people to make choices inconsistent with their own best interests, paternalistic interventions promise to help them do better. […] New paternalists often present their position as striking a reasonable middle ground between rigid anti-paternalism on the one hand and intrusive ‘hard’ paternalism on the other. But … new paternalism carries a serious risk of expansion. Following its policy recommendations places us on a slippery slope from soft paternalism to hard. This would be true even if policymakers — including legislators, judges, bureaucrats, and voters — were completely rational. But the danger is especially great if policymakers exhibit the same cognitive biases attributed to the people they’re trying to help. […] The key point is that the slippery slope risk must be counted among the relevant costs. Unfortunately, the very manner in which the new paternalism paradigm has been advanced makes it likely that risk will be ignored. […] Real people are susceptible to cognitive biases that can lead to poor decisions. It’s only natural to want to help them make better choices. But no one is immune to bias. Not social scientists, and certainly not policymakers. In translating behavioral science into policy, we may be led astray by the very same cognitive defects we wish to correct. New paternalist policies, and indeed the intellectual framework of new paternalism itself, create a serious risk of slippery slopes toward ever more intrusive paternalism. Instead of a paternalism-generating framework, I recommend a slope-resisting framework — one that stresses private options and opportunities for self-correction, and that emphasizes important distinctions such as public vs. private and coercive vs. voluntary. That doesn’t mean we will never adopt any new paternalist policies. But if we do, we will hopefully stand a better chance of not slipping down the slope.” [emphasis added]
— by GLEN WHITMAN, April 5th, 2010 (Cato Institute)

This excellent, and excellently timed, antidote to the monstrous Obamacare legislation is a concise and very persuasive argument against the growing infestation of big-government social-engineering policy-making. Drop whatever it is you are doing and go read it in toto, especially if you have been enamored with the professed good intentions of your betters in the Federal government.

Read it, and try to imagine creeping back up that slippery slope, now that your skids have been greased with that high-tech Obama-lube job.

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