Re: [Pen-l] On Furman into Obama's economic team

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Max wrote:
> When I think Chicago School I think of Friedman's monetary theory, which
> these guys have nothing to
> do with (what Goolsbee described to me as "old macro"), ...

alas, Friedman's monetarism has morphed into "new Keynesianism"
(Mankiw et al) which is marching on.

> The best hint as to policy direction for the BHO administration is in the
> new book "Nudge" by Thaler
> (a 'new behavioral economist') and law prof Cass Sunstein.  It's innovative
> but weak tea, as far as
> progressive proposals go.

as Yoda would say: weak it is. It's about setting the healthy food in
the cafeteria so that it's more visible than the junk food, "nudging"
students to eat the former. Their "libertarian paternalism" (LP) is
okay as far as it goes. (It's libertarian because the students are
still "free to choose" but it's paternalistic because the cafeteria
manager has decided what's good for the students and nudges them.) But
in the part of the book I've read, they don't talk about the limits of
LP, to talk about where actual paternalism is needed. They take the
entire system of wealth and power for granted, so the book is only
about marginal adjustment of the deck chairs on the Hindenberg.
They're in favor of "better governance," but not about who really
governs. The book would be more valuable if we really had a democracy
in the US.
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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