Think of Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame as someone whose Reflective System is always in control … In contrast, Homer Simpson seems to have forgotten where he put his Reflective System … One of our major goals in this book is to see how the world might be made easier, or safer for the Homers among us (and the Homers lurking somewhere in each of us).The whole interview is quite interesting to me; here's a snippet:
Q: You tout liberal paternalism as a promising foundation for bipartisanship. How, exactly, does it bring Democrats and Republicans together?
A: Democrats want to use government power to make people’s lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do.
Republicans like to maintain free markets; Democrats respond that free markets can get people into trouble.
We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions.
Examples include the Save More Tomorrow plan (by which employees agree to devote some of their wage increases to savings), and automatic enrollment plans, (by which employees are assumed to want to enroll in standard savings programs).
Save More Tomorrow and automatic enrollment are helping people to have a lot more money for their retirements. Both Republicans and Democrats gave enthusiastic support to a provision in the 2006 Pension Protection Act that gave employers a small nudge to adopt these policies.
We also like the idea of a Greenhouse Gas Inventory (G.G.I.), by which major contributors to climate change would have to disclose their emissions. The G.G.I. would impose no regulatory mandate, but it would probably do some real good.
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