Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It
Cass R. Sunstein
Mar 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Asa Siegel
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3 hr 23 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
How we became so burdened by red tape and unnecessary paperwork, and why we must do better. We've all had to fight our way through administrative sludge-filling out complicated online forms, mailing in paperwork, standing in line at the motor vehicle registry. This kind of red tape is a nuisance, but, as Cass Sunstein shows in Sludge, it can also also impair health, reduce growth, entrench poverty, and exacerbate inequality. Confronted by sludge, people just give up-and lose a promised outcome: a visa, a job, a permit, an educational opportunity, necessary medical help. In this lively and entertaining look at the terribleness of sludge, Sunstein explains what we can do to reduce it. Because of sludge, Sunstein, explains, too many people don't receive benefits to which they are entitled. Sludge even prevents many people from exercising their constitutional rights-when, for example, barriers to voting in an election are too high. Sunstein takes listeners on a tour of the not-so-wonderful world of sludge, describes justifications for certain kinds of sludge, and proposes "Sludge Audits" as a way to measure the effects of sludge. On balance, Sunstein argues, sludge infringes on human dignity, making people feel that their time and even their lives don't matter. We must do better.
About the author
Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. He is the author of Nudge (with Richard H. Thaler), Noise (with Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony), The World According to Star Wars, and Wiser (with Reid Hastie).
Asa Siegel is a classically trained actor with extensive professional stage experience. He is also a highly skilled voice actor across the spectrum, with work including audiobooks, narration, video games, animated television series, promos and trailers, and national television and radio commercials.
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