Question

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Modern governments increasingly shape citizens' choices not through bans or mandates but through what economists call "nudges" — subtle alterations in how options are presented, leaving freedom intact while steering behaviour. Placing healthier items at eye level in a canteen, enrolling employees in pension schemes by default, or showing households their electricity use beside that of their neighbours all exploit predictable quirks of human decision-making. The appeal is obvious: nudges are cheap, non-coercive, and often strikingly effective. A letter informing British taxpayers that most of their neighbours had already paid raised collections by millions of pounds. Yet critics argue that nudging treats citizens as subjects to be managed rather than minds to be persuaded. If people conserve energy only because a social comparison made them uneasy, have they truly chosen well? Moreover, nudges designed in a laboratory may misfire in the field: defaults that help in one culture may confuse in another, and effects tend to fade once the novelty wears off. The deeper question is who designs the choice architecture. A benevolent administration may nudge citizens toward vaccination; a cynical one may nudge them toward compliance. The tool is neutral; the intent rarely is. What is the central idea of the passage?