Us parlaré de quatre coses d'un llibre meu; espero que us recordin altres coses que ja sabíeu i miraré de lligar-ho tot plegat. Vull començar amb el que jo en dic "dogma oficial" Dogma oficial de què? El dogma oficial de les societats industrials occidentals. I el dogma oficial diu així: si volem maximitzar el benestar dels nostres ciutadans la manera d'aconseguir-ho és maximitzant la llibertat individual. És així perquè la llibertat en sí mateixa és bona, valuosa, desitjable, essencial per a la persona i també perquè, si som lliures, cadascun de nosaltres podem actuar per nosaltres mateixos per fer coses que maximitzen el nostre benestar, i ningú no ha de decidir per nosaltres. La manera de maximitzar la llibertat és maximitzant les opcions.
I'm going to talk to you about some stuff that's in this book of mine that I hope will resonate with other things you've already heard, and I'll try to make some connections myself, in case you miss them. But I want to start with what I call the "official dogma." The official dogma of what? The official dogma of all Western industrial societies. And the official dogma runs like this: if we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to do that is to maximize individual freedom. The reason for this is both that freedom is, in and of itself, good, valuable, worthwhile, essential to being human, and because if people have freedom, then each of us can act on our own to do the things that will maximize our welfare, and no one has to decide on our behalf. The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.
Com més opcions tenim, més llibertat; i com més llibertat tenim, més benestar.
The more choice people have, the more freedom they have, and the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have.
Crec que aquesta convicció està tan arrelada que a ningú no se li ocorre qüestionar-la. I també ho tenim arrelat a la nostra vida. Alguns exemples del que ens ha aportat el progrés. Aquest és el meu supermercat. No és gaire gran. Només en salses per a amanides... Hi ha 175 salses d'amanida al meu supermercat, sense comptar els 10 olis d'oliva verge extra i 12 vinagres balsàmics que teniu per fer-vos encara més vinagretes diferents, si no us fa peça cap de les 175 que hi ha a la botiga. El supermercat és així. Llavors vas a una botiga d'electrònica a comprar una cadena de música -- altaveus, reproductor de CD i de cinta, controls, amplificador. I només en aquesta botiga d'electrònica hi ha totes aquestes cadenes de música. Ens podem muntar 6,5 milions de cadenes diferents només amb els components d'aquesta botiga.
This, I think, is so deeply embedded in the water supply that it wouldn't occur to anyone to question it. And it's also deeply embedded in our lives. I'll give you some examples of what modern progress has made possible for us. This is my supermarket. Not such a big one. I want to say just a word about salad dressing. A hundred seventy-five salad dressings in my supermarket, if you don't count the 10 extra-virgin olive oils and 12 balsamic vinegars you could buy to make a very large number of your own salad dressings, in the off-chance that none of the 175 the store has on offer suit you. So this is what the supermarket is like. And then you go to the consumer electronics store to set up a stereo system -- speakers, CD player, tape player, tuner, amplifier -- and in this one single consumer electronics store, there are that many stereo systems. We can construct six and a half million different stereo systems out of the components that are on offer in one store.
No em direu que no són moltes opcions. En altres àmbits -- el món de les comunicacions. Fa temps, quan jo era petit, podies tenir el servei de telèfon que vulguessis, sempre que fos de la casa Bell. El telèfon era llogat. No es comprava. Aquells telèfons, per cert, mai no es feien malbé. Això ha passat a la història. Ara tenim una gamma gairebé il·limitada de telèfons, especialment en el món dels mòbils. Aquests són els mòbils del futur. El meu preferit és el del mig -- té mp3, afaitadora i bufador de crema cremada. Si, per casualitat, encara no el trobeu a la vostra botiga,
You've got to admit that's a lot of choice. In other domains -- the world of communications. There was a time, when I was a boy, when you could get any kind of telephone service you wanted, as long as it came from Ma Bell. You rented your phone, you didn't buy it. One consequence of that, by the way, is that the phone never broke. And those days are gone. We now have an almost unlimited variety of phones, especially in the world of cell phones. These are cell phones of the future. My favorite is the middle one -- the MP3 player, nose hair trimmer, and crème brûlée torch. And if --
(Laughter)
tranquils que aviat hi serà. Tot plegat fa que la gent demani mòbils amb menys coses. I sabeu la resposta a dia d'avui? La resposta és: no. No hi ha mòbils amb menys coses.
if by some chance you haven't seen that in your store yet, you can rest assured that one day soon, you will. And what this does is it leads people to walk into their stores, asking this question. And do you know what the answer to this question now is? The answer is "no." It is not possible to buy a cell phone that doesn't do too much.
En altres aspectes molt més importants de la vida es dóna la mateixa explosió d'opcions. La sanitat -- ara mateix als Estats Units ja no vas al metge i ell et diu què has de fer. En canvi, vas a visitar-te i el metge et diu: "podríem fer A, o B. A té aquests beneficis, i aquests riscs. B té aquests beneficis, i aquests riscs. Què s'estima més?" I tu dius: "Doctor, què haig de fer?" I el metge et contesta: "A té aquests beneficis i riscs, i B té aquests beneficis i riscs." Vostè què vol fer? I tu dius, "Doctor, vostè en el meu cas què faria?" I el metge diu: "Jo no sóc vostè". I del resultat en diem "autonomia del pacient", que sona com si fos una cosa bona però en realitat és traspassar la càrrega i la responsabilitat de la decisió: d'algú que en sap -- o sigui, el metge -- a algú que no en sap i que segurament està malalt i, per tant, no en el millor estat per prendre decisions -- o sigui, el pacient.
So, in other aspects of life that are much more significant than buying things, the same explosion of choice is true. Health care. It is no longer the case in the United States that you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you what to do. Instead, you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you, "Well, we could do A, or we could do B. A has these benefits and these risks. B has these benefits and these risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "Doc, what should I do?" And the doc says, "A has these benefits and risks, and B has these benefits and risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "If you were me, Doc, what would you do?" And the doc says, "But I'm not you." And the result is -- we call it "patient autonomy," which makes it sound like a good thing, but what it really is is a shifting of the burden and the responsibility for decision-making from somebody who knows something -- namely, the doctor -- to somebody who knows nothing and is almost certainly sick and thus, not in the best shape to be making decisions -- namely, the patient.
Es fan grans campanyes de medicaments amb recepta enfocades a vosaltres i a mi, cosa que, ben mirada, no té cap sentit, ja que no els podem comprar. Per què fan anuncis, si no els podem comprar? La resposta és que volen que truquem al metge i li demanem que ens canviï la recepta. Una cosa tan dramàtica com la identitat ara s'ha convertit en qüestió d'elecció com el gènere dels fills d'aquestes senyores de la vinyeta. No heretem la identitat, ens la podem inventar. I ens podem reinventar tantes vegades com vulguem. Això vol dir que cada dia, quan et lleves, has de decidir la mena de persona que vols ser. Sobre el matrimoni i la família, abans, la idea que tenia gairebé tothom era casar-se com més aviat millor i començar a tenir criatures com més aviat millor. L'única decisió real era amb qui; no quan, ni què es feia després.
There's enormous marketing of prescription drugs to people like you and me, which, if you think about it, makes no sense at all, since we can't buy them. Why do they market to us if we can't buy them? The answer is that they expect us to call our doctors the next morning and ask for our prescriptions to be changed. Something as dramatic as our identity has now become a matter of choice, as this slide is meant to indicate. We don't inherit an identity; we get to invent it. And we get to reinvent ourselves as often as we like. And that means that every day, when you wake up in the morning, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. With respect to marriage and family: there was a time when the default assumption that almost everyone had is that you got married as soon as you could, and then you started having kids as soon as you could. The only real choice was who, not when, and not what you did after.
Ara, tot està bàsicament obert. Dono classes a alumnes molt intel·ligents i poso un 20% menys de deures que abans. I no pas perquè siguin menys llestos, ni menys treballadors. És perquè estan més pendents de decidir "Em caso, o no? Em caso ara? Em caso més endavant? Tinc fills primer, o faig carrera?" Són preguntes molt absorbents. I se les han de respondre, encara que tinguin els meus deures per fer, i treguin mala nota a les meves classes. I fan bé. Són preguntes importants. La feina -- tenim la sort, com assenyalava en Carl, de tenir la tecnologia per poder treballar cada minut de cada dia des de qualsevol lloc del món -- excepte des de l'Hotel Randolph.
Nowadays, everything is very much up for grabs. I teach wonderfully intelligent students, and I assign 20 percent less work than I used to. And it's not because they're less smart, and it's not because they're less diligent. It's because they are preoccupied, asking themselves, "Should I get married or not? Should I get married now? Should I get married later? Should I have kids first or a career first?" All of these are consuming questions. And they're going to answer these questions, whether or not it means not doing all the work I assign and not getting a good grade in my courses. And indeed they should. These are important questions to answer. Work. We are blessed, as Carl was pointing out, with the technology that enables us to work every minute of every day from any place on the planet -- except the Randolph Hotel.
(Rialles)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Hi ha un racó, per cert, que no us diré on és, on arriba el WiFi. No us ho diré perquè el vull per a mi. Tot això vol dir, aquesta increïble llibertat d'elecció que tenim respecte de la feina, que hem de prendre la decisió, una vegada i una altra sobre si hauríem d'estar treballant o no. Anem a veure un partit de futbol dels fills, i tenim el mòbil a una banda, la Blackberry a l'altra, i el portàtil a la falda. Encara que els tinguem apagats, cada minut que veiem el nen massacrar un partit de futbol, també ens estem preguntant "Hauria d'agafar el telèfon? He de respondre aquest email? Redacto aquella carta?" Fins i tot quan la resposta és "no", segurament viurem el partit de futbol de manera molt diferent. Arreu on mirem, les coses grans i les petites, les coses materials i les d'estil de vida, la vida és qüestió de triar. Abans vivíem en un món així. És a dir, hi havia algunes opcions, però no tot es podia triar. I ara vivim en un món així. I la pregunta és: això és bo, o dolent?
There is one corner, by the way, that I'm not going to tell anybody about, where the WiFi actually works. I'm not telling you about it, because I want to use it. So what this means, this incredible freedom of choice we have with respect to work, is that we have to make a decision, again and again and again, about whether we should or shouldn't be working. We can go to watch our kid play soccer, and we have our cell phone on one hip and our Blackberry on our other hip, and our laptop, presumably, on our laps. And even if they're all shut off, every minute that we're watching our kid mutilate a soccer game, we are also asking ourselves, "Should I answer this cell phone call? Should I respond to this email? Should I draft this letter?" And even if the answer to the question is "no," it's certainly going to make the experience of your kid's soccer game very different than it would've been. So everywhere we look, big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things, life is a matter of choice. And the world we used to live in looked like this. [Well, actually, they are written in stone.] That is to say, there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice. The world we now live in looks like this. [The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
I la resposta és: sí.
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
(Rialles)
(Laughter)
Tots sabem el que té de bo, ara us parlaré del que té de dolent. Tantes opcions tenen dos efectes, dos efectes negatius sobre les persones. Un efecte, paradoxalment, és que es produeix paràlisi en comptes de lliberació. Amb tantes opcions per triar, la gent troba molt difícil decidir-se. Us en donaré un exemple molt dramàtic, un estudi sobre inversions en plans de pensions a les empreses. Una companya meva va tenir accés als arxius d'inversions de Vanguard, un gegant dels fons de pensions, d'un milió de treballadors i unes 2000 empreses diferents. I la conclusió va ser que per cada 10 plans de pensions que oferia l'empresa, la participació baixava un 2% Si ofereixes 50 fons -- un 10% menys d'empleats n'agafaran un que si només n'ofereixes 5. Per què? Perquè si tens 50 fons per triar, es tan fotut decidir quin et convé més que ho acabes deixant per demà. I per demà, i per demà, i per demà, i per demà, i naturalment demà no arriba mai. Això no vol dir només que alguns jubilats menjaran pinso de gos perquè no tindran prou estalvis, també vol dir que prendre la decisió és tan difícil que la gent renuncia als beneficis de l'empresa. No participant-hi, renuncien fins a 5000 dòlars l'any de l'empresa, que hauria igualat les contribucions personals. O sigui que la paràlisi és una conseqüència de tenir massa opcions. Em penso que per això el món ens atabala tant.
We all know what's good about it, so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it. All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all. I'll give you one very dramatic example of this, a study that was done of investments in voluntary retirement plans. A colleague of mine got access to investment records from Vanguard, the gigantic mutual fund company, of about a million employees and about 2,000 different workplaces. What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered, rate of participation went down two percent. You offer 50 funds -- 10 percent fewer employees participate than if you only offer five. Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it's so damn hard to decide which fund to choose, that you'll just put it off till tomorrow, and then tomorrow and then tomorrow and tomorrow, and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don't have enough money put away, it also means that making the decision is so hard that they pass up significant matching money from the employer. By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year from the employer, who would happily match their contribution. So paralysis is a consequence of having too many choices. And I think it makes the world look like this.
(Rialles)
[And lastly, for all eternity, French, bleu cheese or ranch?]
(Laughter)
Has de triar bé quan la cosa és per sempre més, oi? No et vulguis equivocar de fons, ni de salsa per a l'amanida. O sigui que aquest n'és un efecte. El segon efecte és que, fins i tot si aconseguim superar la paràlisi i triar, acabem menys satisfets amb el resultat de la tria que si haguéssim tingut menys opcions. Això és per diverses raons. Una raó és que, amb tantes salses per triar, si en compres una que no és perfecta -- i, en fi, quina salsa ho és? fàcilment pensaràs que en podies haver triat una altra de millor. I el que passa és que aquesta alternativa imaginària et fa pensar que t'has equivocat i aquest penediment et resta satisfacció per la decisió presa encara que fos una bona decisió. Com més opcions, més fàcil és penedir-se d'un detall que et decebi de l'opció que has triat.
You really want to get the decision right if it's for all eternity, right? You don't want to pick the wrong mutual fund or wrong salad dressing. So that's one effect. The second effect is that, even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from. And there are several reasons for this. One of them is, with a lot of different salad dressings to choose from, if you buy one and it's not perfect -- and what salad dressing is? -- it's easy to imagine that you could've made a different choice that would've been better. And what happens is, this imagined alternative induces you to regret the decision you made, and this regret subtracts from the satisfaction you get out of the decision you made, even if it was a good decision. The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all that is disappointing about the option that you chose.
Segon, el que els economistes anomenen cost d'oportunitat. Dan Gilbert ha posat èmfasi aquest matí en fins a quin punt el valor que donem a les coses depèn amb què les comparem. Bé, quan hi ha moltes opcions possibles, es fàcil pensar en les coses bones de les alternatives que descartes, que et fan estar menys satisfet de l'opció triada. Un exemple. Als que no sou de Nova York: perdó.
Second, what economists call "opportunity costs." Dan Gilbert made a big point this morning of talking about how much the way in which we value things depends on what we compare them to. Well, when there are lots of alternatives to consider, it's easy to imagine the attractive features of alternatives that you reject that make you less satisfied with the alternative that you've chosen. Here's an example. [I can't stop thinking about those other available parking spaces on W 85th Street]
(Rialles)
If you're not a New Yorker, I apologize.
Però la qüestió és aquesta. Aquí hi ha una parella als Hamptons. Unes cases caríssimes. Platja magnífica. Dia preciós. Ho tenen tot. Què hi ha de millor? "Vaja," pensa aquest home, "És agost, al meu barri de Manhattan tothom és fora. Ara mateix podria aparcar davant de casa." I es passa dues setmanes fastiguejat perquè perd l'oportunitat, un dia rere l'altre, d'aparcar bé. El cost d'oportunitat ens resta satisfacció de les nostres decisions,
Here's what you're supposed to be thinking. Here's this couple on the Hamptons. Very expensive real estate. Gorgeous beach. Beautiful day. They have it all to themselves. What could be better? "Damn it," this guy is thinking, "It's August. Everybody in my Manhattan neighborhood is away. I could be parking right in front of my building." And he spends two weeks nagged by the idea that he is missing the opportunity, day after day, to have a great parking space. (Laughter)
fins i tot quan el que hem triat és fantàstic. Com més opcions hi ha, més aspectes positius d'aquestes opcions ens perdem en forma de cost d'oportunitat. Un altre exemple.
Opportunity costs subtract from the satisfaction that we get out of what we choose, even when what we choose is terrific. And the more options there are to consider, the more attractive features of these options are going to be reflected by us as opportunity costs. Here's another example.
Aquesta vinyeta va de moltes coses. Va de viure el moment i de fer les coses a poc a poc. Però sobretot diu que, quan tries una cosa, deixes de triar-ne d'altres. I aquestes altres coses poden tenir aspectes interessants, que faran menys interessant el que has triat.
(Laughter) Now, this cartoon makes a lot of points. It makes points about living in the moment as well, and probably about doing things slowly. But one point it makes is that whenever you're choosing one thing, you're choosing not to do other things, and those other things may have lots of attractive features, and it's going to make what you're doing
Tercer: expectatives augmentades. Me'n vaig adonar comprant texans. Gairebé sempre vaig amb texans. Abans els texans eren sempre iguals, te'ls compraves, et quedaven fatal, eren molt incòmodes, i si els duies prou temps i els rentaves molt, t'hi començaves a trobar bé. Vaig anar a comprar texans al cap de molts anys, i vaig dir: "Miri, uns texans d'aquesta talla". I el dependent em va dir: "Els vol estrets, normals o amples? De botons, o de cremallera? Rentats a la pedra, o a l'àcid? Els vol gastats? De campana, o rectes, bla, bla, bla... " Moltes coses. Em vaig quedar parat, i al final vaig dir: "En vull uns com els de tota la vida".
less attractive. Third: escalation of expectations. This hit me when I went to replace my jeans. I wear jeans almost all the time. There was a time when jeans came in one flavor, and you bought them, and they fit like crap. They were incredibly uncomfortable, and if you wore them long enough and washed them enough times, they started to feel OK. I went to replace my jeans after years of wearing these old ones. I said, "I want a pair of jeans. Here's my size." And the shopkeeper said, "Do you want slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit? You want button fly or zipper fly? You want stonewashed or acid-washed? Do you want them distressed? Do you want boot cut, tapered?" Blah, blah, blah on and on he went. My jaw dropped. And after I recovered, I said,
(Rialles)
"I want the kind that used to be the only kind."
No tenia ni idea del que li deia,
(Laughter)
o sigui que em vaig emprovar un munt de texans, i vaig sortir de la botiga -- la veritat sigui dita -- amb els millors texans que he tingut mai. Vaig millorar. Tantes opcions em van permetre millorar. Però em vaig sentir pitjor. Per què? Vaig escriure un llibre sencer per mirar d'explicar-ho. Em vaig sentir pitjor perquè,
He had no idea what that was. (Laughter) So I spent an hour trying on all these damn jeans, and I walked out of the store -- truth -- with the best-fitting jeans I had ever had. I did better. All this choice made it possible for me to do better. But -- I felt worse. Why? I wrote a whole book to try to explain this to myself. The reason is --
amb tantes opcions per triar, les meves expectatives sobre els texans es van disparar. Abans n'esperava ben poc. No esperava res perquè només n'hi havia uns. Un cop en tens de 100 gustos, coi, en vols uns de perfectes. I els meus estaven bé, però no eren perfectes. Comparant el resultat amb l'expectativa, em va decebre en comparació amb el que m'esperava. Sumant opcions a la vida de la gent és inevitable disparar les expectatives sobre aquestes opcions. Això ens farà estar menys satisfets amb el resultat, encara que sigui un bon resultat. Això no ho saben els de màrqueting. Si ho sabessin, no ens faria tanta gràcia tot plegat.
(Laughter) The reason I felt worse is that with all of these options available, my expectations about how good a pair of jeans should be went up. I had very low, no particular expectations when they only came in one flavor. When they came in 100 flavors, damn it, one of them should've been perfect. And what I got was good, but it wasn't perfect. And so I compared what I got to what I expected, and what I got was disappointing in comparison to what I expected. Adding options to people's lives can't help but increase the expectations people have about how good those options will be. And what that's going to produce is less satisfaction with results, even when they're good results. [It all looks so great. I can't wait to be disappointed.] Nobody in the world of marketing knows this.
La veritat és més així.
Because if they did, you wouldn't all know what this was about. The truth is more like this.
(Rialles)
[Everything was better back when everything was worse.]
Tot era millor quan tot era pitjor perquè, quan tot era pitjor, les coses et podien sorprendre agradablement. Avui dia -- com a ciutadans rics i industrialitzats l'expectativa és la perfecció -- el millor que pot passar és que les coses estiguin a l'alçada. Mai no t'enduràs una sorpresa agradable perquè les teves expectatives, i les meves, s'han disparat. El secret de la felicitat -- que per això heu vingut -- el secret de la felicitat és esperar poc.
The reason that everything was better back when everything was worse is that when everything was worse, it was actually possible for people to have experiences that were a pleasant surprise. Nowadays, the world we live in -- we affluent, industrialized citizens, with perfection the expectation -- the best you can ever hope for is that stuff is as good as you expect it to be. You will never be pleasantly surprised, because your expectations, my expectations, have gone through the roof. The secret to happiness -- this is what you all came for -- the secret to happiness is: low expectations.
(Rialles)
(Laughter)
[Ja m'està bé.] (Aplaudiments)
[You'll do]
(Applause)
(Laughter)
Vull dir -- com a petita nota biogràfica -- que estic casat amb la meva senyora, i, la veritat, és bastant meravellosa. Millor no podria ser. No em vaig conformar. Però conformar-se no sempre és dolent. Al final, una conseqüència de comprar texans mal girbats quan eren els únics que hi havia era que, si no t'agradaven i preguntaves de qui era la culpa, la resposta era clara. La culpa era del món. No hi havia res a fer. En canvi ara, amb centenars d'estils per triar, si te'n compres uns que no et fan el pes, i et preguntes qui en té la culpa és igualment clar que la resposta és: tu. Ho podies haver fet millor. Amb cent texans per triar, no tens excusa quan t'equivoques. Quan prens decisions, i encara que els resultats siguin bons, si et sents decebut, te'n dónes la culpa.
I want to say -- just a little autobiographical moment -- that I actually am married to a wife, and she's really quite wonderful. I couldn't have done better. I didn't settle. But settling isn't always such a bad thing. Finally, one consequence of buying a bad-fitting pair of jeans when there is only one kind to buy is that when you are dissatisfied and you ask why, who's responsible, the answer is clear: the world is responsible. What could you do? When there are hundreds of different styles of jeans available and you buy one that is disappointing and you ask why, who's responsible, it is equally clear that the answer to the question is "you." You could have done better. With a hundred different kinds of jeans on display, there is no excuse for failure. And so when people make decisions, and even though the results of the decisions are good, they feel disappointed about them; they blame themselves.
La depressió clínica s'ha disparat al món industrialitzat en una generació. Crec que el que ha contribuït -- no totalment, però sí en part -- a aquesta explosió de la depressió, i del suïcidi, es que vivim experiències que ens deceben perquè tenim expectatives massa altes. I, quan refexionem sobre aquestes experiències, pensem que ens hem equivocat. El resultat final és que, objectivament, ens va millor i ens sentim pitjor. Resumint. Aquest és el dogma oficial, que tots donem per bo, i és fals. No és veritat. Sens dubte, tenir opcions és millor que no tenir-ne, però tenir moltes opcions no és millor que tenir-ne unes quantes. Hi ha una xifra màgica. No sé quina és. Estic segur que fa temps que ens hem passat del punt on més varietat significava més benestar.
Clinical depression has exploded in the industrial world in the last generation. I believe a significant -- not the only, but a significant -- contributor to this explosion of depression and also suicide, is that people have experiences that are disappointing because their standards are so high, and then when they have to explain these experiences to themselves, they think they're at fault. So the net result is that we do better in general, objectively, and we feel worse. So let me remind you: this is the official dogma, the one that we all take to be true, and it's all false. It is not true. There's no question that some choice is better than none. But it doesn't follow from that that more choice is better than some choice. There's some magical amount. I don't know what it is. I'm pretty confident that we have long since passed the point where options improve our welfare.
Ara, com a norma general -- i ja acabo -- com a norma general, reflexionem sobre això. Les societats industrials tenim tantes opcions per l'abundància material. Hi ha molts llocs del món, d'alguns n'hem sentit a parlar, on el problema no és tenir massa opcions; el problema és tenir-ne massa poques. Parlo del problema específic de les societats occidentals modernes i riques. El que fa més ràbia és això: Ahir, Steve Levitt us va explicar que les cadiretes infantils dels cotxes són cares, i no van bé. Diners llençats. El que us dic és que aquestes opcions cares i complicades -- no és que no serveixin per a res. És que fan mal. Ens fan estar pitjor.
Now, as a policy matter -- I'm almost done -- as a policy matter, the thing to think about is this: what enables all of this choice in industrial societies is material affluence. There are lots of places in the world, and we have heard about several of them, where their problem is not that they have too much choice. Their problem is they have too little. So the stuff I'm talking about is the peculiar problem of modern, affluent, Western societies. And what is so frustrating and infuriating is this: Steve Levitt talked to you yesterday about how these expensive and difficult-to-install child seats don't help. It's a waste of money. What I'm telling you is that these expensive, complicated choices -- it's not simply that they don't help. They actually hurt. They actually make us worse off.
Si una part del ventall d'opcions que tenim a les nostres societats es traslladés a societats on la gent té poques opcions, no només milloraria la vida d'aquestes persones, la nostra vida també milloraria. Els economistes en diuen "òptim de Pareto". La redistribució de la riquesa fa millorar tothom -- no només els pobres -- perquè la varietat excessiva ens empesta. Per acabar. En veure aquesta vinyeta,
If some of what enables people in our societies to make all of the choices we make were shifted to societies in which people have too few options, not only would those people's lives be improved, but ours would be improved also. This is what economists call a "Pareto-improving move." Income redistribution will make everyone better off, not just poor people, because of how all this excess choice plagues us. So to conclude.
com que sou gent sofisticada, direu: Pobre peix, si es pensa que pot fer el que vulgui. En aquesta peixera, és impossible. Té la imaginació atrofiada, una visió miop del món -- En principi, jo també ho vaig entendre així. Però, com més hi penso, més m'adono que el peix sí que en sap. Perquè la realitat és que, si trenques la peixera perquè tot sigui possible, no tens llibertat. Tens parlàlisi. Si trenques la peixera perquè tot sigui possible, tens menys satisfacció. Creix la paràlisi, i es redueix la satisfacció. Tothom necessita una peixera. Aquesta segurament és massa limitada -- potser per al peix, i de ben segur per a nosaltres. Però l'absència de peixera metafòrica ens aboca al misteri i sospito que al desastre. Moltes gràcies.
[You can be anything you want to be -- no limits.] You're supposed to read this cartoon and, being a sophisticated person, say, "Ah! What does this fish know? Nothing is possible in this fishbowl." Impoverished imagination, a myopic view of the world -- that's the way I read it at first. The more I thought about it, however, the more I came to the view that this fish knows something. Because the truth of the matter is, if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don't have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction. You increase paralysis, and you decrease satisfaction. Everybody needs a fishbowl. This one is almost certainly too limited -- perhaps even for the fish, certainly for us. But the absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery and, I suspect, disaster. Thank you very much.
(Aplaudiments)
(Applause)