Economics and Ethics

David Brooks on same-sex marriage, freedom, and individualism in The New York Times

Mark D. White

In his New York Times column today, David Brooks hails the movement for same-sex marriage as an admirable step away from personal freedom and autonomy:

...last week saw a setback for the forces of maximum freedom. A representative of millions of gays and lesbians went to the Supreme Court and asked the court to help put limits on their own freedom of choice. They asked for marriage.       

Marriage is one of those institutions — along with religion and military service — that restricts freedom. Marriage is about making a commitment that binds you for decades to come. It narrows your options on how you will spend your time, money and attention.

Consistent with his views of individualism (which I've critiqued here and here), Mr. Brooks seems to have an overly simplistic view of freedom and autonomy, such as when he writes that "far from being baffled by this attempt to use state power to restrict individual choice, most Americans seem to be applauding it." Certainly, by marrying, people do give up some basic liberties to each other, but this is a choice freely made—and it is a choice to which gays and lesbians want access just as straights have long enjoyed. In other words, gays and lesbians want the higher-level freedom to restrict their own lower-level freedom (recalling Harry Frankfurt's conception of freedom of the will in which persons constrain their first-order desires based on their second-order ones). Marriage doesn't represent a diminuition of freedom: it is a higher level of it.

He goes on to say, "Americans may no longer have a vocabulary to explain why freedom should sometimes be constricted, but they like it when they see people trying to do it." Perhaps if Mr. Brooks expanded his conception of individual freedom to encompass the choice to constrain yourself, he'd see that Americans understand it extremely well—when that choice is ours. We choose to marry (or form long-lasting relationships), take jobs, enter into contracts, enroll in college, and make all types of commitments to family, friends, and community, all of which restrict our personal freedom. But they are choices that we freely make for any number of reasons, some out of self-interest and others out of a broader morality, and we welcome the opportunity to make these choices—a choice, in the case of marriage, that not all Americans currently enjoy.

The conclusion of Mr. Brooks' column conflates individual choices to make commitments with social pressure to do so:

And, who knows, maybe we’ll see other spheres in life where restraints are placed on maximum personal choice. Maybe there will be sumptuary codes that will make lavish spending and C.E.O. salaries unseemly. Maybe there will be social codes so that people understand that the act of creating a child includes a lifetime commitment to give him or her an organized home. Maybe voters will restrain their appetite for their grandchildren’s money. Maybe more straight people will marry.       

The proponents of same-sex marriage used the language of equality and rights in promoting their cause, because that is the language we have floating around. But, if it wins, same-sex marriage will be a victory for the good life, which is about living in a society that induces you to narrow your choices and embrace your obligations.

My idea of the good life derives from Immanuel Kant's kingdom of ends, a world in which each of us embraces obligations to each other while we pursue our own interests, narrowing our choices as each of us chooses, not as society "induces" us. Mr. Brooks' alternate vision reflects his limited view of individualism as base self-interest in which moral imperatives must be imposed by outside, not necessarily by government but through societal pressure. The question, of course, remains why individuals should trust the wisdom of the crowd for their moral guidance.

Response to Sarah Conly's defense of paternalism in The New York Times

Mark D. White

At Psychology Today, I respond to the defense of paternalism offered this morning by Professor Sarah Conly (author of Against Autonomy) in her New York Times op-ed "Three Cheers for the Nanny State"—you can read my post here.

On Mark Bittman, the soda ban, and "making people think twice" about their decisions

Mark D. White

It is no surprise that The New York Times columnist Mark Bittman laments the judicial rejection of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on large sodas. Unfortunately he resorts to slander when addressing its opponents:

The argument that preventing us from buying 32 ounces of liquid candy in one container somehow restricts our “liberties” can be seriously made only by those who would allow marketing of tobacco to children.

I would hope that Mr. Bittman realizes that paternalistic intervention has significantly different ethical implications when directed towards children rather than adults. Or perhaps he doesn't, as indicated later in the piece:

If 16 ounces of soda isn’t enough for you, the ban would not, of course, have prohibited your purchase of two 16-ounce containers; the idea was to make you think twice before doing so.

This is a nice characterization of this particular nudge, "making you think twice." It's akin to cooling-off periods that are often mandated with major purchases (like cars and homes) and life decisions (such as divorce), to help ensure that people don't make such decisions in what psychologists call a "hot state" in which emotions may supersede rationality.

As I discuss in The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism, these nudges are less offensive to autonomy than the standard type because they encourage better decision-making rather than steering people into the decisions policymakers want them to make. In other words, they engage rational deliberation rather than subverting it. Also, in principle they're outcome-independent, focusing on the process decision-making itself rather than actual decisions made. But in many cases, these outcome-independent interventions would not have been imposed if there were not some concern about the choices being made, and the ban on big sodas is a prime example.

I doubt supporters of the ban would be satisfied if people "thought twice" about their soda consumption decisions and still drink large amounts of it. After all, there is no way to test the quality of a person's decision-making process; they can see observe the decision made, not how or why it was made. And if the outcome is judged by policymakers to be inferior, they make an illegitimate inference regarding the decision-making process, judging it to be inferior as well—a judgment based on their idea of people's interests, not the actual interests of people themselves.

Maybe that's why Mr. Bittman feels it appropriate to "make people think twice" about soda consumption—if they only did, they'd come to the same conclusion he does. It is that presumption, the belief that policymakers both know better that people what's good for them and that they have the right to impose this by law, that makes the soda ban and other nudges so offensive.

(For more, I encourage you to check out The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism.)

Not so sweet: Crossing the line from science to opinion in the sugar wars

Mark D. White

In a New York Times op-ed this morning, Daniel E. Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, makes a strong case for our strong attraction to sugar, but a weak case for paternalistic action on the part of the government to limit our consumption of it.

The problem is captured by the question he poses after he lays out the scientific reasoning: "What should we do?" Professor Lieberman somehow makes the leap from "people are eating too much sugar" to "the government should do something to stop this" without appreciating the size of the chasm he's jumping. (Just ask David Hume.) He fails to explain why this is a problem that justifies government intrusion into the choices of individuals--he simply takes it for granted that because we have evolved to crave more sugar than he thinks is optimal, the government is entitled to adjust our sugar consumption to bring it in line with what he thinks is optimal.

This is yet another example of the most offensive aspect of paternalism: value substitution. We are lucky to have access to Professor Lieberman's scientific insights regarding why we crave sugar so much. But then he asserts his opinion that we eat too much sugar, based on his opinion regarding our optimal diets (based on our ancestors' nutritional nirvana long before Coca-Cola and Nabisco). This much is fine--everyone is entitled to his (or her) opinion, and he is fortunate that The New York Times gives him a platform to express it. But like all who endorse paternalism based on what they think we can do better, Professor Lieberman crosses a line when he shifts from expressing his opinion regarding our behavior to endorsing government action to adjust our behavior based on that opinion.

But isn't it commonsense that we should eat less sugar (and salt, and trans fats) and more healthy foods? Of course. But is that all our only concern? Is it our only interest? Should it be? Not only does value substitution mispresent our true interests, but it only greatly oversimplifies them. I know I shouldn't eat too much sugar. But I also think a sugary treat or drink is a fine complement to a meal, or the cornerstone of a celebration, or a nice way to acknowledge a job well. People's interests are complex, and while they do include health, they also include a myriad of other things, things that are ignored when a scientific expert or government regulator proclaims, "Too much! Too much!"

After making a reasonable case for limiting unhealthy foods in schools--a proposal I have very little problem with--Professor Lieberman proclaims that "adults need help too." This is the paternalistic mindset in a nutshell: you need help because we know better than you how you should run your life. Again, he makes a tremendous leap, from "you are being tempted by cheap sugar from the food industry" to "you need the government to step in and counter this influence." First, there is no way to know how much sugar consumption is due to "irresistible temptation" and how much is due to open-eyed choice. Paternalistic regulation--whether in the form of prohibition, taxes, or nudges--is a blunt tool that misses the nuances of human decision-making.

Second, this treats people as slaves to their passions--there's Hume again--which must be manipulated by the state to counter manipulation by industry. Professor Lieberman devotes just two sentences to spreading information, but decides that it hasn't done enough--"enough," of course, based on his opinion regarding what should have happened. But here's another possibility: people know how bad sugar is from them, and armed with that information plus all of their multifaceted interests, they nonetheless choose to eat more sugar than Professor Lieberman would like them to.

Professor Lieberman concludes with this: "We have evolved to need coercion." I hope he's not making that claim on the basis on his scientific expertise, because science cannot tell us what we need. Science can help explain why we do what we do--as Professor Lieberman well details in the early part of his article--but it has nothing to contribute to what we need. Such a proclamation requires knowledge of our goals, interests, or "purpose"--the last one a teleological notion which scientists normally disavow--and none of which science or government knows better than people themselves.

New York Times' Room for Debate: Wrong Question, Wrong Answers

Mark D. White

That was fast--in a "Room for Debate" feature that went online Saturday evening, the New York Times asked "What's the Best Way to Break Society's Bad Habits?" The contributors, predictably, take the question at face value and answer accordingly. But the question is nonsensical and the answers beside the point.

"Society" does not have bad habits--people do. And it is not for "society," or anyone in it, to decide whether a person's habits are bad, except that person himself or herself. Others are free to tell a person they think he or she has bad habits, to try to persuade or inform him or her about why these habits are bad, but only the person who has these habits can judge whether they are bad, based on his or her own interests.

So the question the Times poses is based on a false premise. A better question would be, what can we do as a society to help people conquer habits that they themselves judge are bad? Paternalism won't work, since it paints with too broad a brush, affecting everyone with a particular habit whether they think it's bad or not. The best way to help people break self-identified bad habits is to hold them responsible for their consequences.

But exactly the opposite is happening: we are moving away from individual responsibility and toward collective responsibility. This shows up most clearly in health care, where the more responsibility the government takes (or forces private insurers to take) for people's unhealthy behavior, without being able to charge more in premiums or deductibles to make up for it, the less incentive people have to moderate such behavior. If they were faced with even some of the costs of their behavior (as they would under a more flexible private health insurance system), people could make a fairly rational decision whether the cigarettes, or soda, or fatty foods, are worth the eventual cost. But now their personal costs are opaque, consisting of taxes or insurance premiums largely unrelated to their behavior.

And the all-too-predictable result of more collective responsibility for health care is more governmental control of behavior. Restrictions on unhealthy behavior are not just paternalistic anymore--they're now a public cost problem. Cities and states are eager to cite rising Medicare costs as justifications for their restrictions on smoking, trans fats, and other health risks. (Forget broccoli: academics today seriously endorse plans to mandate exercise.) But this is like the boy who shot his parents and then argues for mercy because he's an orphan; by claiming responsibility for health care costs, the government has created the crisis (or at least this particular part of it) which "justifies" restrictions on behavior.

Let people judge whether their own habits are good or bad, and let them take responsibility for the consequences of these decisions. That's the right answer to the right question.

Let's Be More Productive

Mark D. White

In The New York Times over the weekend, Tim Jackson contributed a piece titled "Let's Be Less Productive." In it, he decries the modern obsession with productivity gains, while recognizing the role it has played in increasing standards of living. He cites necessarily stagnant productivity in the arts, services, and craft industries, which William Baumol noted years ago, terming it the "cost disease" (because wages would have to remain competitive while productivity stayed the same), but cautions against increasing productivity throughout the economy because of other detrimental effects--specifically on jobs, if higher productivity is not accompanied by growth.

I have no problem with tempering the push for higher productivity, especially in areas in which it can hardly be expected. Productivity is a means to an end and therefore it is only valuable insofar as it actually serves that end. But I think there is an end which can benefit from higher productivity that Jackson doesn't see: a less work-centered conception of meaningful life. Instead, he sees higher productivity as a threat to full employment:

Ever-increasing productivity means that if our economies don’t continue to expand, we risk putting people out of work. If more is possible each passing year with each working hour, then either output has to increase or else there is less work to go around. Like it or not, we find ourselves hooked on growth.

On a certain level he's right; if we produce the same amount of output more efficiently, that means less resources will be required, including labor. For people who want to work, who need to work, this is of great concern, which makes this an important matter to discuss during these dire economic times.

But more generally, we should consider if work is a means to an end or an end in itself. It's the former for most everybody, of course, but the latter for only some. It's a cultural stereotype that Americans live to work while Europeans work to live, but it is based on a kernel of truth. Some people find their life's meaning primarily in work, but others find it more in other aspects of life, such as service, art, family, or love. Higher productivity may result in fewer jobs, yes, but insomuch as some people find a job a burden--and have other means to support themselves, such as a spouse or a partner--they can enjoy other aspects of life if they have other means of support, due to higher productivity.

There are other benefits to this aspect of higher productivity. It would relieve the modern necessity of the two-earner family, either allowing a two-parent family to live on one earner's income, or a single-parent family to live more comfortably on one income. And higher productivity can also--if you're so inclined--finance a stronger welfare state, to support those who want to work but can't find a job, and have no partner or other financial support. Even without growth, higher productivity enables a state to fund social welfare programs. (Just look at Sweden, where a fairly unrestrictive regulatory environment for business has led to productivty gains and growth to support their extensive welfare state.)

There is plenty of room to bemoan the single-minded focus on productivity espoused by many in business and government, and at the same time to recognize that the loss of jobs it creates (in the absence of corresponding growth) has some broader societal benefits, including lessening our reliance on our jobs and careers to give meaning to our lives and relaxing the economic burden on families. Work to live, indeed!

On Character (in The New York Times' The Stone)

Mark D. White

In this morning's The Stone column in The New York Times, UNC visiting professor Iskra Fileva offers "Character and Its Discontents," in which she writes eloquently on the nature of character in response to the situationist critiques of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Her article doesn't lend itself well to quotes--it really must be read in full to be appreciated--but two points stood out to me.

1. Even when we judge people to have behaved inconsistently with what we took to be their character traits, this may be the fault of our limited perception of their character rather than any inconsistency of their part. (She attributes this point to psychologist Gordon Allport.) This parallels my point against paternalism, that the only knowledge regulators have of a person's interests in what they can infer from his or her choices or behavior, for which there can always be multiple explanations. By the same token, it is difficult to infer character traits from behavior with any confidence, and therefore it is difficult to make any judgments of inconsistency based upon them (just as external judgments of poor choices cannot be made simply based on observations of previous ones).
2. Unity of character is an aspirational goal, rather than something to be taken for granted. This reminds me of Kant's understanding of autonomy as a responsibility as well as a capacity, in that all of us have the potential to be autonomous but we have to work at it constantly, exercising our strength of will, in order to maintain it. It is also consistent with what I wrote in Kantian Ethics and Economics (in chapter 3, based on the work of Christine Korsgaard and Ronald Dworkin) about constructing, expressing, confirming our characters through the choices we make, which is a responsibility for personal integrity that we all have.

I also appreciated that she began the piece with a discussion of character in fiction, which is important for more pragmatic reasons. Nonetheless, creators have a responsibility to their audience to maintain behavioral consistency in their characters, who can have complex motivations up to a point. This makes them more fascinating, but beyond this point, the characters themselves become imperceptible, such as in absurdist literature and theater, as Fileva mentions, or in poorly written traditional fiction (a frequent complaint of fans of "serial fiction" such as myself).

The food labeling debate shows why paternalism is so offensive

Mark D. White

In this morning's New York Times, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel writes about the presentation of nutritional labels on food packaging. He begins:

Research suggests that consumers spend only about one second looking at nutrition information when making myriad choices. A parent dashing through the grocery store aisles with kids in tow has to decide, in that one second, which is better: Triscuit vs. Saltines vs. Wheat Thins vs. Ritz? This is why Americans need a simple, standardized and truthful label on the front of all packaged foods.

These three sentences provide an excellent example of my main argument against paternalism: that it necessarily involves the state presuming a) to know the interests of its citizens and b) to take action to influence their behavior in those presumed interests.

Dr. Emanuel cites evidence that consumers spend (on average?) one second looking at nutritional information while shopping for food. He doesn't cite the study, so I can't know the details. I'm curious, though, if it covers all food purchases, even those the consumer has made previously (perhaps after a careful investigation of the nutritional details of each option), which would take little time, while new comparisons involved more time. I wonder also if it gauged the "quality" of the choices made after the one second spent reading the labels--were the decisions made judged to be faulty, or was the one second spent on reading labels taken as evidence that they were?

Regardless, Dr. Emanuel judges this one second to be insufficient, based on some conception of consumers' interests, and concludes that they "need" a better labeling system. Much of the rest of the piece describes the government's attempts to negotiate a new labeling system with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, as well as the insufficiency of private initiatives toward the same end.

I wonder if he has considered that the (average) one second spent analyzing nutritional information may very well represent the optimal choice of consumers acting in full knowledge of their own interests. Certainly there is always a possibility of cognitive bias and dysfunction influencing these decisions--they may irrationally discount the value of careful analysis of nutritional information, or simply be lazy--but this cannot be inferred from the length of time spent reading the labels. Instead, someone had to judge that one second is not enough--a judgment which is then used to justify paternalistic action to influence individuals' decisions.

Later in the piece, when arguing for a simple labeling scheme, Dr. Emanuel insults consumers:

What we need are simple, standardized icons that can be understood by a shopper in a second or less, located in a consistent place on all packages. No higher math or advanced nutrition knowledge should be required to grasp the icons’ meaning. The information should reflect real serving sizes (canned soup labels regularly give the amount of salt for just half the can, trying to disguise that a whole can contain almost an entire day’s intake of salt). And we should have interpretive symbols telling shoppers simply whether an item is healthy or unhealthy.

Apparently, consumers cannot be trusted to turn the package around to find the nutritional information; to understand the terms "fat" and "sodium"; to understand what "50% of recommended daily allowance" means; or that when the package contains two servings, the numbers must be doubled. In the end, they need icons (maybe smiley, frowny, and angry faces) to drive the point home that "this food good, that food bad." I'm not saying the current presentation of nutritional information is perfect--but if consumers are dissatisfied with it, they will demand improvements.

Near the end of the piece, Dr. Emanuel writes:

After waiting a year, it seems pretty clear that we can’t trust the G.M.A. to do the right thing by the American consumer. When industry fails to voluntarily police itself, then it may just be time for regulation. But regulations require extensive research as well as hard-to-come-by agreement on the effectiveness of interpretive symbols, on the design of the symbols themselves and on the formula to be used to define how healthy each item is. All that will take at least two years, and will most likely be harder on the industry over all. A voluntary government-industry agreement is the better path.

The reason the G.M.A. will not do the "right thing" by American consumers is that they do not presume to know what the "right thing" is for them. Instead, they present the consumer with options (in hopes of earning a profit) and the consumer chooses among them (in hopes of satisfying their own interests). If consumers signal through those choices that they want different labels, or more low-fat options, or gluten-free foods, then it will be in manufacturers' interests to provide them. Paternalist regulators, on the other hand, presume to know the true interests of consumers without understanding the reasons behind their choices, and then take it upon themselves to manipulate choices based on them. (And don't get me started on the notion of a "voluntary government-industry agreement," given the regulatory power of the FDA.)

I don't doubt that Dr. Emanuel's heart is in the right place; paternalism is often motivated by sincere concern for the well-being of others. But that concern must also be tempered by respect and humility: respect for the choices of individuals about whose well-being the paternalist knows very little. Dr. Emanuel may think that Twinkies are a poor food choice--so do I! I don't think anyone believes they're a healthy option. But neither of us has the right to tell other people they can't eat them, or to use the power of the state to influence their choices in the direction we think they should go.

"Let them eat cake," she said--even processed, simulated cake product--and let them bear the consequences as well.

Parents as Vigilantes... for Parenting?

Mark D. White

In his column in this morning's New York Times, Mark Bittman reiterates his call for regulation of the amount of sugar Americans consume, such as taxing sugary foods and adding them to the list of items for which food stamps cannot be used--nothing new there. (I've discussed Bittman before here.)

After presenting his case for sugar regulation, he asks,

The question “Is this necessary?” is unavoidable. But as obesity and its consequences ravage our health care system, we struggle not only with our own diets but also with preventing our children from falling into the same traps. Last year a brigade of parents stood watch outside a corner store in North Philadelphia in an attempt to prevent their kids from buying junk food.

They’ve been called foot soldiers, but you might call them vigilantes. Vigilantism occurs when people believe the government isn’t doing its job. We need the government on our side. It must acknowledge the dangers caused by the most unhealthy aspects of our diet and figure out how to help us cope with them, because this is the biggest public health challenge facing the developed world.

Vigilantes? He casts parents as vigilantes for doing their job--parenting--and blames the government for not "doing its job"--which is parenting. Vigilantes usurp legitimate roles of the state, such as criminal justice--not taking care of our kids.

For the record, I have no problem with schools limiting their own food offerings to healthy foods and eliminating junk food from school vending machines, but these parents were trying to stop their kids from eating junk outside of school--which, again, is their job, not the government's.

On Barry Schwartz's "The Danger of Too Much Efficiency" in The New York Times

Mark D. White

In the New York Times, psychologist Barry Schwartz (author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less) warns us of "The Danger of Too Much Efficiency," in which he argues that, while efficiency is generally a good thing and enables increases in standards of living, more efficiency is not necessarily better. The first half of his piece is an excellent summary of the benefits of efficiency, which he illustrates using the concept of friction:

...firms compete to become more efficient, and we as consumers, along with Bain and its like, benefit from this competition.

What stands in the way of efficiency is friction. When automobile manufacturers struggle to squeeze as many miles per gallon as possible out of their car designs, friction is the enemy. Their aim is to design a vehicle that uses every ounce of fuel to move the car forward.

And so it is in the world of finance. As the historian Niall Ferguson reminds us in his book The Ascent of Money, hard as it is to imagine, people didn’t always have money. The invention of money went a long way toward reducing the friction, the inefficiency, in financial transactions. No longer did the farmer have to bring sacks of potatoes to the marketplace to trade for eggs and milk. Money was a medium of exchange that greatly reduced what some have called the financial coefficient of drag.

But Schwartz recognizes that increasing efficiency by reducing friction is not the only important concern to individuals or society. After summarizing the efficiency gains from securitizing mortgages and increased access to consumer credit, he turns to the downside:

All these examples tell us that increased efficiency is good, and that removing friction increases efficiency. But the financial crisis, along with the activities of the Occupy movement and the criticism being leveled at Mr. Romney, suggests that maybe there can be too much of a good thing. If loans weren’t securitized, bankers might have taken the time to assess the creditworthiness of each applicant. If homeowners had to apply for loans to improve their houses or buy new cars, instead of writing checks against home equity, they might have thought harder before making weighty financial commitments. If people actually had to go into a bank and stand in line to withdraw cash, they might spend a little less and save a little more. If credit card companies weren’t allowed to charge outrageous interest, perhaps not everyone with a pulse would be offered credit cards. And if people had to pay with cash, rather than plastic, they might keep their hands in their pockets just a little bit longer.

Rather than focus on his policy recommendations (with which I have much disagreement, as regular readers of this blog can easily imagine), I want to address his normative analysis of efficiency, which with I have much sympathy. I do think, however, that the particular way in which he criticies the emphasis of efficiency is strange, and obscures his greater point to some extent--a point with which, again, for the most part I agree.

Using the Aristotelian language he adopted in his more recent book (written with Kenneth Sharpe), Practical Wisdom, Schwartz recommends finding the "golden mean" of efficiency rather than simply purusing its maximum level. While I don't disagree with this in principle, I do think it is an odd way to put the problem, since it suggests that we can find the optimal level of efficiency without consideration of other values. If there is a golden mean of efficiency, the only way to find it is to determine how much efficiency is consistent with other values we want to promote (such as justice, dignity, and equality). This is really no different from the Aristotelian determination of the golden mean of characteristics like courage, in which the extremes of foolhardiness and cowardice offend other values and ends, as opposed to being internally inconsistent.

But I find the golden mean analysis to be misleading in a deeper sense when applied to efficiency. The reason we can't determine the optimal level of efficiency is because it is an empty value--it's a mean to an end, not an end in itself. And as such, it should be maximized in order to provide the means to pursue valuable ends, except insofar as it conflicts with those ends themselves. In other words, the pursuit of efficiency must be limited, but out of recognition that other values are more important, not that there is something inherently bad about a certain level of efficiency. The only "danger with too much efficiency" is that it implies that important values have been neglected in its name.

To a large extent, this all cashes out the same way; my disgreement with Schwartz on this issue is largely rhetorical rather than substantive. He emphasizes the excessive attention given to efficiency, and then recommends that it be frustrated (by increasing frictions through regulation) in order to correct the resulting problems. But as I said above, the issue is not an excessive focus on efficiency, but on neglect on other values which should temper it. It is as if we said that, if people neglect their families to spend time at the gym, then we should discourage gym use by raising membership fees or reducing hours of operation. But exercise--also a good thing in general, though it can be taken too far in many ways--is not the problem here. The neglect of family is the problem, and it is that neglect that should be addressed. In general, our focus should be placed directly on the neglected values (justice, equality, and so forth) rather indirectly on limiting the threat to them (too much efficiency).

Indeed, Schwartz does emphasize the importance of corrective norms, although he resorts to regulation to bolster them:

Perhaps we can use the criticism of Bain Capital as an opportunity to bring a little friction back into our lives. One way to do this is to use regulation to rekindle certain social norms that serve to slow us down. For example, if people thought about their homes less as investments and more as places to live, full of the friction of kids, dogs, friends, neighbors and community organizations attached, there might be less speculation with an eye toward house-flipping. And if companies thought of themselves, at least partly, as caretakers of their communities, they might look differently at streamlining their operations.

True, increased observance of these norms would increase friction and reduce efficiency, but that shouldn't be the goal--the goal should be increased observance of the norms themselves! Again, the result is the same, but I worry that focusing on efficiency as the "target variable" risks obscuring the more important issues behind it.

I think Schwartz would agree with me that, in the end, the best way to conceptualize of efficiency is as a means to an end, in which the values we hold individually and collectively are promoted by it at the same time that they temper its pursuit.