In case anyone thinks Renata Salecl is alone with her ideas, she isn't. I'm sure most of you have heard of TED. In 2007 they had Barry Schwartz to talk about the Paradox of Choice(also a book). I think I watched this years ago and IIRC it isn't as bad as Salecl's nonsense(we'll see, as I'm actually watching the talk as I write this).
03:40 Healthcare used to be simpler. You went to the doctor and the doctor told you what you should do. Now the doctor gives you choices(A has these risks and these benefits, B on the other hand has these risks and these benefits; now choose).
First of all Schwartz's example is a caricature.
Second of all doctors do this to avoid legal liability. Schwartz ignores the legal institutions that have been erected around healthcare and simply offers this as an example of how more choice complicates things. The solution is to return to a doctor-patient relationship that is based on voluntary contracts, not legislation and legal uncertainty as it is now. Schwartz gives us an example of forced choice, not freedom. In Schwartz's example the patient asks the doctor what he should choose, and the doctor replies by repeating the risks and benefits of each treatment. It's amazing how anyone could think that such a situation could be in any way natural or simply a result of more choices. Schwartz's example in fact implies that more choice prevents doctors from doing their job.
08:10 More choice produces paralysis. With so many options to choose from, people find it difficult to choose at all. Vanguard example.
Schwartz gives us an example of how more choice in retirement investment funds leads to no choice at all. Yeah, more choice probably makes people realize that they don't know a god damn thing about how to invest money. So they don't invest. Schwartz argues that this is a bad thing(i.e. people should invest). Who is he to make that judgement? [*snip* Edited a rather weak argument away. My main point still stands.]
Schwartz's argument reminds me of this xkcd strip. Let's see...
Crazy phenomenon: More choice leads to paralysis(i.e. limiting choice removes the paralysis and makes people more likely to choose/buy stuff).
If it worked, companies would be using to make a killing in... selling anything that currently comes in "too many" varieties.
Are they? No, if the amount of salad dressings in a normal supermarket is an indication of anything.
10:15 With a lot of different choices it's easier to imagine that we could've picked a better choice than the one we actually picked.
With a lot of different choices it's a lot easier to think about all the bad things we avoided by choosing what we chose. With a lot of choices we observe competition in action, and thus we are more likely to think that what we choose is good and don't care that much about the alternatives. With limited choices we might think we're more likely to pick the worst choice of them all... And so on.
Nice theorizing, but as I can't recall a single example of where I've thought like Schwartz says we think, I have a hard time relating(i.e. Schwartz and his armchair theorizing does not convince me).
12:25 Escalation of expectations: No more pleasant surprises!
I experience pleasant surprises all the time. Besides, our expectations are formed by the reality we live in. Low expectations are usually a sign of a crappy life.
But what does it mean to have high expectations? As reality changes, so do our expectations. Concretely speaking as society becomes wealthier we expect things to be better than in the past. But this does not mean we can't experience pleasant surprises. For this to be true our expectations should be high compared to the reality we live in; not the past. Schwartz completely ignores this. Comparing our current expectations to the expectations people had in the past is meaningless. It tells us that we've become wealthier as a society, but it does not in any way affect our ability to experience pleasant surprises. This is a serious error in Schwartz's thinking.
16:00 Self-blame, clinical depression, suicides...
Unfortunately I can't completely refute any of these with armchair logic(just like Schwartz can't prove anything), but I do have some off-the-top-of-my-head theories, which I might refine and talk about in the future(or probably not). Let's just say I have a great trouble accepting the entire self-blame theory and I especially can't relate it to choice.
17:00 Some choice is better than none, but more choice isn't necessarily better than some choice. We've long passed the point where more choice leads to greater welfare. We shouldn't "waste" resources on more choices, and should make the pareto-optimal decision to shift income(and choices) from affluent societies to poorer ones.
Global wealth redistribution, what a shocker. Schwartz is basically a central planner who wants to provide for the optimal amount of choices. If Schwartz was right, then I have a very simple solution. Governments in affluent societies should simply show this talk to as many as possible. Then people would realize how they could be better off by sending money to poorer countries(plenty of organizations make that possible).
But Schwartz doesn't base his welfare analysis on demonstrated preference, so he wouldn't be satisfied with just that.
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