Barry Schwartz Quotes

I want to start with what I call the official dogma... of all Western industrial societies... "If we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens... maximize individual freedom. ...The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice."

If some of what enables people in our society 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 of this excess choice plagues us.

Identity is much less a thing people "inherit" than it used to be.

Responsibility for medical care has landed on the... patient with a resounding thud. ...The tenor of medical practice has shifted from... the all-knowing, paternalistic doctor... to one in which the doctor arrays the possibilities... along with the likely pluses and minuses... and the patient makes the choice.

Ask yourself what is the point of advertising prescription drugs... Clearly they... expect we will... demand that our doctors write the prescriptions.

A large array of options may discourage customers because it forces an increase in the effort that goes into making the decision. ...[T]hinking about the attractions of some of the unchosen options detracts from the pleasure derived from the chosen one.

When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases... the autonomy, control and liberation... are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects... begin to appear. As the... choices grow further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.

There's enormous marketing of prescription drugs to people like you and me... They expect us to call our doctors... and ask for our prescriptions to be changed.

[W]e should make an effort to limit how much we think about the attractive features of options we reject.

[W]e must decide which choices in our lives really matter and focus our time and energy there, letting many other opportunities pass us by.

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... 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?" ...We call it patient autonomy... but what it really is, is a shifting of the burden and responsibility for decision making from somebody who knows something... to someone who knows nothing and is almost certainly sick, and thus not in the best shape to be making decisions...

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. Once consequence of that... is that the phone never broke.

[I]ncreased choice among goods and services may contribute little or nothing to the kind of freedom that counts. ...[I]t may impair freedom by taking time and energy we'd be better off devoting to other matters.

The average American thirty-two-year-old has... worked for nine... companies. ...[J]ob-switching has become so natural that individuals that have worked for the same employer for five years are regarded with suspicion. ...[T]heir desirability or ambition is called into question ...

[In] the world we used to live in... there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice, and the world we now live in looks like [The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]. Is this good news or bad news? [T]he answer is both.