Very interesting article, I remember that when those examples you mentioned were in the news, I was really pissed off and angry, exactly because of the point you make here: accountability is sacrified, and even sanctioned!

Actually, in the Icesave example, it was quite easy to check whether this specific bank was subject to the guarantee system of the Dutch Central Bank, and it wasn’t! They might have had an A status or 5 stars, but if you had brought your money to them, the Dutch Central Bank didn’t guarantee you’d see a penny of it back in case of bankruptcy.

But let’s get back to the real matter at hand, the question of responsibility. In modern complex society it can be very hard to foresee the results of ones actions. One just cannot be an expert in everything, the world is constantly in flux, and it’s sometimes hard to keep up and have an eye for everything that can influence your actions.

On the other hand, there is so much information available, combined with a healty dose of suspicion, it shouldn’t be too hard to get reliable information that helps us decide.

The problem is, that this only works for individuals that make their decisions bases on reason. In the mentioned examples, this was not the case. The girl that thought she could fly, was having psychological problems before she used the drugs. The pensionado acted out of greed.

The tragedy is, that some politicians use these cases to make laws, and apply them to people that do know how to act with reason, and in the process justify that we act without responsibility.

What we, and those politicians, should never forget, is that without responsibility, there can be no liberty. If you take away the former, you remove the latter.

Or, to quote John Locke: “I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away every thing else”.

On choice fatigue, I’d like to recommend this excellent talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Thank you both for your comments and please allow me to respond.

@Ralf
You are, of course, right that the debate regarding the distribution of responsibilities between state and individual is an old (although not unimportant) one. My intention here, however, was not so much to join this debate but more to state that, provided we want our society to be a democratic one, there is a minimum level of personal responsibility for all of us that we cannot (and maybe should not want to) transfer.

@ Philip
Although I completely agree with you that in our current society choice fatigue is a very realistic phenomenon, I cannot accept however the extent to which you allow it to diminish the minimum level of effort required by competent adults in making those very important decisions.
To come back to the Icesave example, at the time the bank became active on the Dutch market, the first 20,000 eur was guaranteed by the Icelandic government and the second 20.000 eur was guaranteed by the Dutch government. This means that anything above 40,000 eur was unsecured. In the light of the above the question becomes then: Should anybody who moved a significant part of his savings to this bank have known those numbers and if he did and choose to do it regardless, should he still be reimbursed?

At some point, the notion of choice fatigue should pop up in this (blog challenge, anyone?). Seeing as I often have difficulty finding out what company or which people are ultimately behind a brand, digging through layers of (partial) ownership, one could also argue that, before appealing to individual responsibility, companies’ right to obfuscate brand and product relations should be limited.

Finally, I simply can not imagine your 20-year-old tourist not “bravely suffering through the consequences” of his actions.

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