Dakota Beacon

Nowadays, winning the Nobel Prize in economics recognizes one's talent for embracing the arrogant, condescending attitude of a big government, central planning elitist. Nobel laureate and New York Times resident sage Paul Krugman illustrates the point. I've discussed Krugman's ideas HERE.

Today let's turn to a reliable source of progressive foolishness, Financial Times. FT brings us economist Paul Ormerod, who discusses a claim by economics Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman: "Humans reason poorly and act intuitively." In response to Kahneman's proclamation, Ormerod tells us how government must guide the private sector. "In theory, 'nudging' should help governments change the behaviour [sic] of people and companies."

This facet of the progressive attitude is nothing new. Basically, progressives think that the masses are lamebrained fools who must be spoon-fed by brilliant mystics. And progressives invariably assume that the most brilliant people can be found in either academia or government. Kahneman's and Ormerod's nonsense is a "soft" form of the totalitarian central planning that devastated the U.S.S.R. and Communist China.

The "nudge" philosophy arose from the field of "behavioral economics." BE was used to show how government can "nudge" people to behave as government desires in the book, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Nudge was written by Obama's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler. I discussed the devious approach pushed by the two men in the article, "Manipulation as policy: how Obama’s transformational coalition plays ‘We the People’ for suckers" back in November 2009.

Sunstein is a strong advocate for government regulations that "nudge" people in the direction that wise men like Sunstein and Obama want the people to go. Sunstein's approach is doubly disturbing, as he is one of the Obama minions who will write the regulations to carry out the freedom-robbing mandates in Obamacare, for instance.

But let's not stray off-topic.

Returning to the Financial Times article, we find Ormerod suggesting that government use "social networks" to "nudge" people to behave in the way that government wants the people to behave. Granted, Ormerod has the U.K. in mind, but anyone claiming to see no manipulative trend now ensconced in American government in the persons of Sunstein, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Medicare and Medicaid director Donald Berwick, is either insufficiently informed, in denial, or disingenuous.

How should government manipulate the people? Ormerod has an answer.

The government needs to show far more imagination. In particular, it must recognise [sic] how social networks can unlock the power of behavioural [sic] policy.

Government will set "behavioral policy?" Better believe it. Sunstein might as well have been called the "Behavioral Policy Director." Instituting "nudges" with regulations for carrying out freedom-smothering laws is precisely Sunstein's job.

So what does Ormerod mean by using "social networks" to nudge behavior? Progressives like Ormerod, Sunstein, Sebelius, Berwick, and Progressive-in-Chief Obama believe that the free market is not good for Homo sapiens. Instead, government must leverage things like Facebook, MySpace, and actual physical social groups to push socioeconomic behaviors in the direction that the ruling class sets. According to Ormerod,

…it is the family and friendship networks in which many of the long-term workless are embedded that make it hard to shift their behaviour [sic] by conventional incentives alone.

So then, government should use social networks to nudge people to change their friends. Yes, we read correctly. Where would the nudging stop? Obama sees no limit. Sunstein, Sebelius, and Berwick seem to have no limitations in mind. Progressives' goal is to control every aspect of the lives of the unclean masses.

In the FT article, Ormerod goes as far as to suggest that government use networks to make it "socially unacceptable" to earn a lot of money. Who would determine what is too much money?

Observe. "I do think at a certain point, you've made enough money." -- President Barack Obama, April 29, 2010.

So now, in America, who will determine what is too much money?

My favorite part of Ormerod's article is when the guy makes the following statements concerning the "nudge" approach.

This approach is disconcerting for policymakers raised in the command and control era. But a series of experiments of small nudges, harnessed to the power of networks genuinely to change behaviour [sic], offers a potentially much more effective way of tackling seemingly intractable problems. The coalition is halfway there. But it now needs to push the power of networks to realise [sic] its vision of a Big Society.

I had to read the paragraph several times before the man's intentions sank in. Can we say, "Big Brother?" Ormerod's claim that the nudge approach might be "disconcerting for policymakers raised in the command and control era" is perhaps the most stunningly clueless or blatantly dishonest statement I've ever seen from a progressive. Ormerod had just spent 623 words advocating command-and-control strong-arm tactics camouflaged as "nudges." Then he had the gall to claim that command-and-control aficionados might have a problem adapting to the approach.

Or...

...maybe Ormerod's contention took no gall at all. Intellectual dishonesty is the most prominent characteristic of the Obamas, Sunsteins, Berwicks, Sebeliuses, Krugmans, and Ormerods of the world. Members of the progressive species can, with no special effort, observe all that is observable and then advocate behaviors and policies that are rendered plainly impossible by what they have just observed. Progressives wear intellectual dishonesty like a badge of honor. They tell noble lies in the interest of "fairness" and for the purpose of redistributing wealth and talent to make everyone "equal."

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér