Behaviourism & the Hidden Costs of Intervening in Human Complexity

In 2008, Harvard Law Professor, Cass Sunstein co-authored the book Nudge:

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. The book was a sensation, popularising the term Behavioural Economics and starting a global wave of governments setting up ‘Nudge Units’ – including in Australia. ‘Behaviourism’, as its commonly known, is the idea that governments could create policy to subtly modify the actions of citizens. But is behaviourism just deployed to sidestep the real structural reforms required to mitigate systemic power imbalances?