Using a nudge instead of a big stick to get what you want is still coercion
It was difficult not to notice how $1.1m trickled down from the Nobel Foundation to professors Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler for their contribution to economics with their nudge theory, as promoted in their eponymous book.
While it is not the kind of billions of lolly syphoned off the South African economy by those in political power, it is the sort of moola that can make a considerable difference to, say, the state of a flyfisher’s kit, even if you must split it with the other guy who, frankly, is a bit slow on the uptake and bone idle when it comes to organising his footnotes.
Let’s not get sidetracked. Nudge theory is an offence to the free and the righteous, however deluded they may be. Being deluded is a sacred, inalienable human right. The idea of freedom of choice is more precious than its manifestation.
But in the interests of reason, the Financial Times, that repository of sober journalism, had to be consulted, and Della Bradshaw’s anecdote changed everything. She writes: “When Richard Thaler signs copies of the best-selling book Nudge, which he co-authored with legal scholar Cass Sunstein, he always writes ‘nudge for good’ next to his name. ‘That’s a plea, not an expectation,’ explains the Chicago Booth professor, and one of the fathers of nudge theory, which describes how small interventions in the environment or incentives can encourage people to make better decisions.”
Which brings us to the metaphorical flap of a butterfly wing, that is, a small intervention that causes metaphorical hurricanes several continents downwind. In nerdy language, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, the mise en abyme of systems in which the violent storm is an iteration of the slight flap of a butterfly’s wing, with perturbations of energy and volume.
The idea is that a little nudge, as opposed to force, can benefit individuals, or society, or both. One example is to adjust the wording of a reminder to pay your tax to say, “others have already paid”, instead of “Judge Dredd is coming to get you”.
It means using shame or peer pressure or the threat of social ostracism as a slight nudge to get you to do the right thing on the understanding that it is more politically correct than a stern warning, especially if it is a “nudge for good”, it is coercion all the same. Now that we’re discussing hurricanes, Harvey (Weinstein) did not have to flash a gun to coerce his victims to accept his sexual advances. Force is force. If the subject is unwilling, it is violence. If he had been possessed of sexual magnetism and women threw themselves at him, the sex would have been consensual, as it would have been a consensual transaction if Harvey had been seduced for gain by droves of ambitious starlets, but, by all accounts, that was not how it happened. He harassed women because he thought he would get away with it via the nudge of shame and of influence and of cultural acceptance of violence against women.
The trouble with nudging is the assumption that the manipulators can be trusted to do good. In many cases this may be so, but it cannot be guaranteed. Who knows what is for the good? The government? Not ours.
Several governments have established nudge offices where they make citizens’ decisions for them. Under the theory, citizens may opt out of the nudge, that is, if they even know they are being manipulated, but even if just one person is unaware of the small print, it is wrong to apply it universally.
Manipulation contradicts citizens’ freedom of choice, even if they consistently make poor choices. Freedom means we are free to make mistakes if we accept the consequences of our choices.
Sunstein has defended the theory in another book, The Ethics of Influence, which is a bit like defending the ethics of thermonuclear war. As demonstrated in chaos theory, nudge offices may hope they sow benevolence with the flap of a butterfly wing, but they will reap a storm, as they have each time they have dared to coerce the people.
Go pin a Nobel prize on that.
THE TROUBLE WITH NUDGING IS THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE MANIPULATORS CAN BE TRUSTED TO DO GOOD