It feels like this book was written for me! In his book Nudge, Cass R. Sunstein describes how people are moved to act in a beneficial way. Sludge describes the muck that bogs you down when you attempt to act. Sunstein discusses barriers to action in the government, public and private sector, namely the administrative burdens like filling out paperwork, following processes that maybe outdated, and additional red tape. Overall, this was an interesting and well-written book.

**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I cannot say enough positive words about this book!! Sludge talks about all of the processes that stand in the way of progress and all of us actually accomplishing anything at all. I think this should be required reading for every professional who has a say in policy and procedure--it might just make a difference in the world. Read this.

If a nudge can push you to making a decision, sludge stops decision making in its tracks. Lots of examples of ways in which the structure of programs, forms, laws, and policies can act too stop people from taking action to improve their lives, sticking them in a less than optimal place. Much of Sunstein's examples are drawn from his time in the Obama administration, although he does branch out into private examples too. He goes deep into law and policy at points, but even the examples of all the ways the sludge can act to prevent people from doing helpful things is enlightening. The only downside is when he gets to his prescriptions which often involve wonky policy changes and/or Congressional action to make it easier for Americans to access and take advantage of government programs. In this age of bad faith governance and politicians who do not want more people in programs like Medicaid, Sunstein's actions have little to no chance of taking effect nationwide at either the Federal and State level. And that is just depressing.

Has an excess of paperwork ever stopped you doing something? Or a complicated online form (think job applications!) with too many attachments required? Cass Sunstein call this ‘Sludge’ and his new book out next week tackles this subject.

At just over 100 pages it’s a fairly quick read. ‘Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What To Do About It’ explores what ‘sludge’ is, why it’s so harmful, why it happens and why it’s sometimes necessary. It also discusses ‘sludge audits’ (think like noise audits from his recent Thaler/ Sibony co-authorship on ‘Noise’), potential reform and Sunstein’s manifesto for an attack on sludge in order to protect our most treasured commodity - our time.

Published 7/9/2021 by The MIT Press

Admittedly, I'm a big fan of Cass Sunstein and his work. So I say that upfront given any biases I may have brought to reading this book. It's really an illuminating read, but like his other writing, he has a way of taking research and taking about things that could seem mundane (bureaucracy) and making it engaging. His framing of sludge is important because for those of us who still believe in the value of government to address big problems, this shouldn't be conflated to mean that there needs to be needless bureaucracy/inefficiency/(digital) paper pushing in order for government to provide needed services to people. I hope this book and it's framing will start to become more part of the discourse political leaders use at local, state, and federal levels. Getting rid of sludge can save people an immense amount of time (especially collectively) and can remove friction points that make signing up or using services cumbersome, especially for the most marginalized and left behind in society.

Note: I voluntarily requested, read, and reviewed this book. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sending me a temporary digital advance reading copy/advance review (ARC) galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. As always, my opinions are my own and do not represent my co-host or the podcast. I request, read, and review many books prior to publication to explore possible future guests for the podcast. I wish we could interview the author of every one of these books because I'm so impressed by the creativity, thoughtfulness, and wisdom shared through the temporary books I get through NetGalley.

Cass Sunstein has a knack for direct images. He and Richard Thaler scored big with Nudge, which has entered the lexicon. It doesn’t get much more successful than that. Now he is publishing Sludge, based largely on his experience running OIRA, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for the Obama administration. Where nudges are positive tools used for social good, sludge is a damaging and unnecessary burden, of no lasting value.

It makes for a very short book, but it packs a visceral punch. It speaks directly to everyone, clearly and economically. It is a very fast read.

Everyone experiences sludge. No one besides its creators likes it, but it just grows and grows. It now accounts for 11.4 billion hours a year, just for federal reporting by Americans. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, Sunstein estimates that costs them $308 billion a year in time they could have spent on themselves.

Sludge is not limited to idiot paperwork. It can be mandatory interviews 60 miles from home, research to provide backup for claims, licenses just to perform a job, standing in endless lines for endless hours, or on hold equally annoyingly. He even includes two-factor logins as annoying sludge. It is something we invented; we do it to ourselves. Undoing it was Sunstein’s job in Washington. He does not claim to have succeeded.

Prior restraint is also sludge: forcing people to obtain permission to do what they do naturally in the course of their lives, like speaking out or protesting. A ban on prior restraint would really be a ban on sludge, he says.

Eliminating sludge transforms people into rightsholders instead of supplicants, he says. It is a whole different ethos that would be nice to experience some time.

It pops up in the weirdest places. Hospitals notoriously require endless paperwork, often, if not usually identical, but all for different offices. Photocopying will not do. During the pandemic, vaccines were miraculously free of sludge requirements. Yet COVID-19 tests (still) require a prescription from a doctor, which might mean phoning, going to an appointment, paperwork and co-pays. For what, one might ask. Sludge.

The scam of sludge for job licenses has really gone too far. Various states have various licenses for various jobs. It serves only to delay employment and put workers in further debt. The average coursework for an occupational license stands at 248 hours. For lower paying jobs, requirements can add up to a year of experience and coursework before licensing. Sunstein says an interior designer needs 2190 days, a primary schoolteacher 2050, a shampooer 248 days, a tree trimmer, 574. Plus fees of course. Cosmetologists in South Dakota might need as many as 16 forms to get licensed. Thinking of moving to another state? Go back to Go, do not collect $200.

Even private firms push sludge, making it difficult to get their products repaired or replaced under warranty. Endless calls to customer support end badly far too often. And so people give up. It’s not worth their time, their increase in blood pressure or their attention. And clearly, someone out there is counting on that. Lots of someones know they can beat back their customers and get away with it.

Government, however, takes the cake. The sick, the poor and the disadvantaged pay the highest price. They might simply be unable to make that interview three towns away. They might not have computer skills to know the form submitting with attachments game because they don’t own a computer. They can’t take the time off work, or stop caring for a family member. The result is far too many of the neediest not participating in programs designed to help them.

States are infamous for adding sludge to applications for SNAP/food stamps. They add proof of work requirements, proof of citizenship, proof of domicile and more. Medicaid, specifically designed for the poorest and the out of work, often requires proof of employment now. Or documented job interviews.

Just generally, only 10 to 40 percent of potential beneficiaries follow through all the way. Even for cash, like a product rebate, the same pathetic numbers apply. It’s just not worth the hassle, the wait, the followup phone calls and so on. Companies get to keep the money; they forecast it. This scenario even has a name: inertia.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Sunstein cites studies that show a nine to ten point increase in IQ when people have plentiful cash and aren’t stressed by sludge.

On the plus side, he points to Social Security, which has made it its business to know who applicants are. Social Security numbers follow people throughout life and the country, so the federal government always knows its commitment. No need for back tax reports or a curriculum vitae, with copies of pay stubs going back 40 years. It can process applicants in a phone call, and add Medicare coverage at the same time. So it is possible to live without or with minimal sludge.

Some sludge is just plain mean. Asking for data they already have, refusing to allow online submissions and then refusing to prepopulate forms with the data they already have, and demanding quarterly reporting instead of annually are a few ways Sunstein says government in particular has of being annoying. Studies show that simply reducing the sludge brings huge improvements in response. Just sayin’.

Currently, my personal most annoying sludge is online address forms. The moment you input your postal code, they know precisely your city, county, state and country. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should have type all that into boxes, or scroll through all the stupid dropdowns. They could populate the form themselves, instead of delaying the sale with this nonsense. Useless sludge.

At several points, Sunstein tries to show examples where sludge might be beneficial. Delays in granting divorce or for abortions figure prominently. And government wants to be absolutely sure money is going to a worthy person. And so on. He says this is okay as far it goes (which is not very far, as better options exist), but he is still firmly on the reduced sludge side. Basically, “Sludge works as a penalty; it makes everything worse.”

And when life is as complicated as it has become in modern society, that is saying a lot.

David Wineberg

A thought-provoking book about how forcing people to jump through regulatory hoops and navigate red tape in their interactions with government makes governance worse and is a fundamental affront to human dignity. A book that may be short in length, but not in research and thoughtful analysis, it should be of interest to anyone interested in improving government efficiency and effectiveness, whether coming from the left or the right.

This book gave a very honest and helpful perspective into the burgeoning need to reduce sludge in all its forms. Prior to reading this book, I had not fully considered the many different ways essential progress wanes due to unnecessary paperwork, bureaucracy and minutiae. I'm still attempting to reconcile how I might champion this new way of green living, so to speak, given my humble station in life. But now that I can better recognize sludge for what it is, I will be less likely to tolerate it without speaking up moving forward.

A fascinating topic written in a relatable way by a brilliant author. I appreciate how he categorizes things we deal with in our daily lives as "sludge".

Very repetitive; 5 examples where one or two would suffice. The book, what I could read of it, seems to go in circles making the same point over and over again to fill space. It was also poorly formatted and difficult to read. Every few pages you saw sentences that were incomplete or unrelated to what came before. It made the book unreadable. Perhaps the author's aversion to paperwork resulted in a refusal to proofread?

Extremely important topic, and overall well-written. Sludge popularizes the concept of administrative burdens and other government and private sector barriers that make things tougher and less pleasant. Sunstein does a good job of documenting the costs, why we should care, and proposing some potential solutions.
But this is also the quintessential book that probably should have been a magazine article. (No slight particularly intended in Mr. Sunstein's direction, who's made a dizzying collection of important ideas more accessible through this format; just in general, there's a crucial core that could be captured faster, and then some more-detailed explorations that should either have been fleshed out or cut.)

If you're looking for a quick intro to these topics, Sludge is a great, accessible intro. If administrative burdens and government process are something you're passionate about, I'd instead recommend the far-more-thorough Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means, which Sunstein acknowledges his work owes a great debt to.

Thanks NetGalley for an ARC. (Though boo to MIT Press, which was so obsessed with watermarking and unkind to Kindle readers that this is borderline illegible since the watermark made it into the kindle edition and replaces some of the text. It's clear enough from context what got cut, but c'mon man.)

Cass Sunstein's <i>Sludge</i> is a sort of sequel to <i>Nudge</i> that tackles the issue of excessive paperwork, redtape, barriers in contemporary American society. Sunstein's focus is mostly on the sludge, a kind of transaction cost, imposed by government programs on applicants, and how that sludge often prevents those who need those programs most from accessing and benefitting from them. He discusses the different types of sludge and some of the pros and cons.

Overall, <i>Sludge</i> is a clear, short and wonky read that is sometimes repetitive. However, I appreciate Sunstein's serious effort to advocate for curtailing sludge. It often seems that as the American federal government grows and power is centralized that sludge grows with it. The removal of sludge would indeed appear to function as a major boon for Americans and America more broadly. Sunstein has several workable policy initiatives and strategies to accomplish this end, but acknowledges that value-based disagreements will affect individuals' specific positions on specific types of sludge. Thus, Sunstein's <i>Sludge</i> lacks a bit of a central message or vision other than Sludge is usually bad. I agree with this, but it doesn't necessarily identify what sludge is most high yield to remove and who are the proponents of sludge that keep this from being achieved.

It is an insightful book, written by former white House staffer.
It describes sludge - unwanted complexities in a system that reduce delivery of benefits to real beneficiaries.
It could be paperwork, or licensing or difficult message- and program or policy fails to deliver.
It also acts as a disincentive for unwanted activities like data theft and privacy breaches.
It is a very good book and suggests appropriate remedies for reducing sludge from the system; like higher education, scholarships, abortions, voting, health services etc.

A worthy counterpart to Sunstein's Nudge. In this volume he explores how government and business often provide disincentives for people to do the thing that is best for them. It's also, frankly, a quick read, but one which will leave you thinking long after you're done.