In an article appearing in the August 2004 Econ Journal Watch he criticized libertarian paternalism, espoused by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, as oxymoronic. He argued against what he perceived as an overly loose and weak definition of libertarianism on the grounds that Thaler and Sunstein made no meaningful distinction of between liberty and coercion. In failing to define the concepts of liberty and coercion as fundamentally dissimilar processes. Libertarian paternalism uses a hyperrational behavior model of human nature as a definition for libertarianism, and neglects alternative definitions such as those advanced by Adam Smith and F.A. Hayek.