Why a nudge from the state beats a slap

One of the many competitive advantages American public intellectuals have over their British counterparts is the ability to capture their thesis in a single word: Chaos, Sway, Faster, Blink. The most successful of these endeavours colonise the word for the author’s purposes. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, both professors at the University of Chicago, have done it again with Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness