It could use a little more Hayek and a little less Big Mother

From The Problem With Nudging People to Happiness by Randy Barnett. A book review.

I have mentioned often in the past that Sunstein is an interesting thinker doing some intriguing work which I think is too often subverted by his state centrism and over-reliance on the demonstrably misplaced belief in the good intentions of the centralized decision-makers. According to Barnett, Sunstein's thinking is evolving, with a greater respect for Hayek, but he is still unable to believe that the Mandarin Class are anything less than well intentioned and effective. Despite the virtual entirety of the opposing evidence.

Just as a building has a structure that allows the people within it to pursue their own happiness without obstructing the movements of others, a free society has a structure defined by the natural rights of first possession, private property, freedom of contract, restitution, and self-defense. These rights—all of which can be loosely characterized as "property rights"—distinguish liberty from license. License is the freedom to do whatever you desire. Liberty is the freedom to do whatever you desire with what, according to these principles, is rightfully yours.

In the Hobbesian state of nature, liberty is conceived as the liberty do anything at all, including the freedom to use other people's bodies. So government is needed to limit this liberty to avoid life being solitary, nasty, and short. By contrast, the Lockean state of nature "has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." Government, then, exists not to limit liberty but to protect it better than each of us can do on our own.

When speaking of freedom in the abstract, it is essential to know to which freedom one refers. The title of Cass Sunstein's small and provocative new book, On Freedom, is therefore ambiguous. Does he mean unrestricted freedom that must be shaped or limited by government? Or does he mean a liberty bounded by rights that government is tasked to secure?

Sunstein is a progressive liberal. He genuinely cares about individual freedom. But like all progressives, he thinks "we" can do better than merely protecting the rights of individuals and letting the spontaneous order of human actions develop from there. The best and the brightest should intervene to improve outcomes.

Sunstein's distinctive contribution concerns the nature of that intervention. Most progressives, like Hobbes, believe that freedom must be constrained by force to "make the world a better place." Indeed, many seem to believe that anything that is not prohibited by the state should be mandated. Sunstein, instead, has long favored "nudging" over jailing and fining. On Freedom is an accessible introduction to how he approaches social problems—and a constructive challenge for libertarians.

Sunstein is dangerous because many of his ideas do have merit, but in a far more limited fashion than he is willing to acknowledge.

Since then, Sunstein has become a bigger fan of Hayek. In this book, he quotes the Austrian economist as saying that "the awareness of our irremediable ignorance of most of what is known to somebody [who is the chooser] is the chief basis of the argument for liberty." And yet, Sunstein asks, "Might people's freedom of choice fail to promote their own well-being" from the perspective of their own desires? "Every member of the human species knows that the answer is sometimes yes." So he proposes nudging people to make the choices that will better achieve their own goals.

I would like to see him seriously confront the problem of knowing how to nudge people to get what they want. He might then consider whether government experts, panels, and boards will always have the interests of the people, rather than those of powerful interest groups, in mind. On Freedom is a stimulating read that should nudge libertarians to stop and think harder about nudging. But it could use a little more Hayek and a little less Big Mother.