Schmölders believed some economic behaviors could be deliberately reshaped by policy.
Evidence
Whereas Schmölders had seen no possibility to influence workers’ savings behavior effectively, he formulated a more ambitious goal for development policy. Behavioral research was supposed to develop methods to “effectively and responsibly influence the motives and attitudes of economic actors.” Besides development policy, Schmölders also advocated further international comparisons of financial psychology in order to distinguish different tax mentalities that would determine the acceptance and effectiveness of various taxes. In his view, there were constant aspects of human behavior that could not be altered at all, and variable parts that were formed and influenced by political, social, and cultural factors that were subject to change and could be changed intentionally. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 337
Categorization
- XREF: The constant-vs-variable behavior split anticipates Thaler and Sunstein’s later ‘libertarian paternalism’ distinction between fixed biases and nudgeable behaviors. — connects to: Behavioral economics offers the sensation of reform without reform — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 746; Surveillance capitalists redirected behavioral economists’ nudges toward private profit rather than individual welfare. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 921; Some policies are self-consciously designed to entrench themselves and their creators.
- SEED: Essay angle: the prehistory of behavioral economics inside the neoliberal thought collective — ‘nudge’ as a genealogy running through 1960s German financial-psychology, not just Kahneman.
Broader Connections
- Behavioral economics offers the sensation of reform without reform
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 746 - Surveillance capitalists redirected behavioral economists’ nudges toward private profit rather than individual welfare.
#responds-to(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 921