Moral suasion
A famous example is the attempt by William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society to end slavery in the United States by arguing that the practice was morally wrong.
[9] In the temperance movement of the 18th and the early 19th centuries in Britain and North America, moral suasion was initially a key part of the strategy for reducing the prevalence of alcohol in society.
[11] After initial victories, the nonviolent strategy began to struggle in the 1960s and largely ended by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[12] Moral suasion has sometimes been effective in resolving religious disharmony, especially if the government is actively involved as a mediator.
When conflicts arise, the government's approach is to mediate or resolve the issue through common sense, and moral suasion using the collective efforts of the community, grassroots and religious leaders.
[14] A study of marine debris regulations in the United States from 1989 to 1993 revealed that moral suasion can be an effective tool to limit the discharge of trash into water, despite the offenders' low probability of being detected.
For example, Canadian policymakers advocates for moral suasion in their endeavour to achieve environmental and wildlife policy objectives, a course of action that is likely to fail if little regard is placed on the accompanying incentives.
[2] That has led some authors to criticise moral suasion as immoral since compliers get penalised for co-operating with the stated government agenda and thus incur extra costs, but noncompliers are not punished.
[2] Other objections to the use of moral suasion include that it constitutes extra-legal coercion by the government, adds uncertainty to the regulatory process, and can undermine or delay the implementation of effective legislation.
As fewness of economic agents to be persuaded is a necessary condition for moral suasion to be effective, that policy instrument is more adapted to countries with a higher concentration of suppliers, both in terms of number and of geography.
That was illustrated in 1979, when the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve System, Paul Volcker, warned banks against raising prime rates above a certain level,[26] and in the 1960s, when US President John F. Kennedy caused U.S. Steel to reverse its decision to increase prices by sharply criticizing the company.
[30] The Singapore government's decision to publish comparative cost data from different hospitals to encourage them to be more efficient is also an example of moral suasion being used in conjunction with information provision.
"Jawboning", or moral suasion in the context of economics and politics, is the use of authority to persuade various entities to act in certain ways, which is sometimes underpinned by the implicit threat of future government regulation.
In the United States, during the Democratic administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, officials tried to deal with the mounting inflationary pressures by direct government influence or jawboning.
During the 2000 US presidential election, George W. Bush criticized outgoing President Bill Clinton for not attempting to lower oil prices by "jawboning OPEC" to increase supply.
The Canadian-American economist John Kenneth Galbraith stated that "jawboning" was first used to describe the activities of the US Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, which was formed in April 1941.
