Slippery Glenn!

Glenn Beck, the talk-radio superstar and ultra-vicious right-wing propagandist on Fox TV, is in the news. In a series of broadcasts he has accused Frances Fox Piven, a 78-year-old liberal academic, of proposing -- in an article co-authored with her late husband 45 years ago -- a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.” Moreover, as Brian Stelter writes in today's The New York Times, he has accused her on television this week of being "an enemy of the Constitution." Not surprisingly, "Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail."

These threats against Prof. Fox Piven can't be taken lightly. As the recent horrors in Tucson have reminded the world, the United States remains a country where idiotic and suggestible people can easily get hold of automatic weapons and copious quantities of deadly ammunition.

Although I do not watch Beck's program, I think I have an idea of his basic approach to propaganda: He starts by describing a government initiative that most people would find innocuous. He then uses the slippery slope argument -- the last refuge of every debater who realizes that he has no case -- to argue that the initiative, no matter how reasonable -- or even appealing -- it may seem, is only a start and that in the end all your rights will be taken away and you will become a slave of the government.

As proof, I give you -- ta da! -- Beck's Sept. 14, 2010 program. Beck begins with a gratuitous and vulgar attack on Michelle Obama, the first lady, and her anti-childhood-obesity campaign. He then launches a prolonged attack on Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, the recent bestselling bestselling book on behavioral economics and its policy implications, by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, two world-renowned academics.

Last fall semester, I had introduced a new course on behavioral economics, and one of the textbooks I used was Nudge. To illustrate my lectures, I had been scouring the Internet for related video, and it was this search that had led me to Glenn Beck's program. I couldn't believe that one of the most popular programs on TV was devoting 15 precious minutes to a textbook that I was teaching from. This had never happened before and will almost surely not happen again. I was appalled by Beck's insane attempt to turn what was essentially a deep and policy-oriented treatise -- see the reviews in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Time, and The New York Times -- into some sort of blueprint for a program to enslave all Americans. But I was thrilled that I had something to impress my (largely apathetic) students with. After this, they would not be able to say that what I was teaching did not matter. The textbook was on TV, for heaven's sake!

Nudge argues that the choices that we make are in may cases distorted by deep-seated psychological weaknesses and that, as a result, government policy may be able to intervene to make us all better off without in any way taking away our freedom to choose as we please. (Take, for example, the fact that many Americans save far too little for retirement. Many workers do not bother to even join the pension plan available at work, not through conscious decision but simply because they are hobbled by procrastination. Thaler and Sunstein suggest that the current opt-in system be replaced by an opt-out system. Under an opt-in system a worker must write to his or her employer to be included in the company's pension plan. Naturally, many don't bother to do even that. Under an opt-out plan, on the other hand, every employee would automatically be enrolled into a pension plan, but would be able to opt-out by simply checking a box on a card. Such opt-out systems do not take away a worker's freedom to not join a pension plan, but have been found to dramatically increase enrollment rates and saving rates. See Thaler's article in Newsweek.) In his program, Glenn Beck -- what a coward! -- actually does not take on the argument of the book. He simply distorts the book's argument! He says that eventually "a nudge will become a shove" and that the freedoms that Americans take for granted will be taken away.

Thaler and Sunstein repeatedly clarify that they are against any reduction in a citizen's freedom to choose. They call their approach libertarian paternalism, to emphasize this very point. And yet, Beck completely ignores this! In short, Beck makes no argument against the Thaler-Sunstein proposals, distorts what the book says, and uses the slippery slope argument to frighten his largely semi-literate audience. As a coup de grace, Beck calls Cass Sunstein -- who, before joining the Obama administration, was a professor of constitutional law first at the University of Chicago and then at Harvard, and is one of America's most distinguished legal scholars -- the "most dangerous man in America." Twice!

Please read Brian Stelter's article on the Fox Piven affair. It seems that Beck is simply recycling the strategy he used against Nudge.