Behavioral economics shares origins with, rather than refutes, neoliberal thought

Evidence

The recent boom in behavioral economics, marked by the Nobel Memorial Prize for Richard Thaler in 2017, is often described as a refutation of the supposedly one-dimensional models of human behavior native to neoliberal thought. Yet this dichotomy relies on a false contrast and glosses over the many links between the two fields. Rüdiger Graf concentrates on the overlooked case of Günther Schmölders. As a member of the Nazi party and SS from 1933 onward, and MPS president from 1968 to 1970, Schmölders was the proponent of an idiosyncratic strain of behavioral economics in Germany. Graf shows the multiple political uses to which behavioral economic approaches can be put—to both limit state power and extend it into new domains. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Thaler/behavioral-economics literature on nudging and libertarian paternalism; also the intellectual-history line the reader is building across this book. — connects to: Belief in bodily self-ownership props up neoclassical economics but is itself a myth — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 415; Behavioral economists never intended to displace mainstream neoclassical orthodoxy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 741; Behavioral economics gets coopted to excuse rather than reform orthodox theory — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 745 (+4 more)
• SEED: Angle: the Nazi pedigree of German behavioral economics — how the same toolkit (behavioral insights) served both Nazi governance and postwar anti-statist liberalism.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: exactly which behavioral-economics practices of Schmölders could be used to both limit AND extend state power? The symmetry claim is striking enough to verify against the source chapter.