This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 12, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It's a new idea with lots of names, new paternalism, soft paternalism, even

Libertarian paternalism.

Whatever you call it, the goal is to change our behavior

for the better, according to our own stated preferences.

And that raises all sorts of issues

and is explored in depth in the new edition of Cato Unbound, managing. sorts of

issues and is explored in depth in the new edition of Cato Unbound.

Managing editor of Cato Unbound,

Jason Kuznicki, describes the debate.

As the new paternalists would have us believe,

what is the critical distinction between their kind of paternalism and

old-fashioned paternalism.

The new paternalism tries to give the consumer what he personally wants. So for example we all want to eat

healthier and a common way of doing this that new paternalists really like is to arrange the choices in a cafeteria so that the fruit comes first and you'll pick maybe an orange instead of a chocolate chip cookie.

And this has been scientifically demonstrated.

You put the junk food up first and people take it.

You put the healthy food first, people take that instead.

That's a good example of new paternalism in action.

Okay, and that wouldn't separate what these people want from, say, a Whole Foods,

where you walk into Whole Foods and the design of the store and John Mackey will tell you this

...