|
Who said anything about governments protecting people from making bad decisions? - my point was that people often protect themselves from adverse future events, including risks associated with a weakness of the will (as in the case of gambling). The point about government intervention is your neurosis, Strawman; not mine. :) That said, I am happy to argue that there are cases in which governments or their agents should protect individuals from bad decisions. Problem gamblers are indeed an example. That said, one does not necessarily need to be irrational to benefit from government intervention to reduce bad decisions. An example is where there are high information costs, where it may be more efficient for governments to provide the information than for individuals to do so (or for private firms given that the marginal costs of information, once gathered and displayed, is generally zero and issues or free-riding would arise were competition allowed). An example is signage about road conditions. There are other cases in which I would indeed allow someone to take away individuals' free will - for example, in the case of people's desires to murder others.
| 
