We think that required active choosing is most suitable when the choices are simple, such as whether to opt in or out. In more complex situations, such as choosing a portfolio from a menu of hundreds of mutual funds, forcing people to choose is a dubious strategy.

The point is that high take-up of the default option cannot be viewed as a success in and of itself.

The false assumption is that almost all people, almost all of the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made by someone else. We claim that this assumption is false—indeed, obviously false. In fact, we do not think that anyone believes it on reflection. Suppose that a chess