The paradox of choice (my writing challenge - day 11) Hello! You are satisfied and happy with your choice? Today I want to write about a TED talk "The paradox of choice!" by Barry Schwartz Barry started with a dogma of Western countries. If we want to maximize the welfare of our citizens, then we have to maximize individual freedom. If we have freedom, then we can do our own things or can decide about these and that will maximize our welfare. More choice means more freedom, more freedom means more welfare, so this dogma. He showed a picture of his supermarket. Over 175 salad dressings – that is an offer for only one thing. The store is full of other products. That means it is a lot of choice. He gave another example. When we go to a doctor, then he can't to tell us what to do. The doctor will give us a choice about possible medicine or therapies. Later he talked about what is bad about the uncountable choices. There are two negative effects. The first effect is, that the choice produces paralysis. People have problems to find the best choice. He showed an interesting real example in a company. Employees could choose in variety of funds of investment in retirement plans. But the more funds were the more employees could not decide about it. The decision was too hard. The second effect is when we make a choice, we are less satisfied with the result of the choice. When you have to decide to buy one of 175 salad dressings, and one of these are not perfect, which of them are better? The more options there are, the easier is it to regret the other options. When we have a lot of options, then we imagine a perfect thing. Our expectations increase and our satisfaction decline. His suggestion is an income redistribution. Economists call it “Pareto-improving move”. it means, when we can some of the products, our choices to give people, who have only few options, then it would be make better the world not only of the poor people, also our world. Thanks for reading. It would be great, if you could correct it. Thanks!