Jawboning

Extracted Attributes

• Type

  Impure moral suasion (backed by explicit or implicit threats)

• Definition

  The use of authority or influence, sometimes backed by the implicit threat of future government regulation, to persuade entities to act in certain ways.

• Origin Field

  Economics and Politics

• Criticized by

  Alfred E. Kahn (economic advisor to Jimmy Carter)

• Legal Concern

  First Amendment violation (when used to silence disfavored speech)

• Legal Precedent

  Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) - government cannot make threats that influence speech

• Alternative Name

  Proxy Censorship

• Economic Application

  Influencing oil prices (e.g., OPEC to increase supply)

• Associated Biblical Story

  Samson slaying a thousand enemies with a jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:15)

• Definition by Cato Institute

  The use of official speech to inappropriately compel private action.

• Associated Rhetorical Concept

  Pathos (Aristotle's concept of appealing to moral principles)

Timeline

• John Kenneth Galbraith states 'jawboning' was first used to describe activities of the U.S. Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply. (Source: Summary, DBpedia)

  1941

• The Supreme Court ruled in Bantam Books v. Sullivan that the government cannot make threats that influence speech, a decision upheld in subsequent rulings. (Source: Web Search)

  1963

• The verb 'to jawbone' appeared regularly in the media. (Source: Merriam-Webster)

  1960s (mid)

• The noun 'jawboning' made its print debut. (Source: Merriam-Webster)

  1960s (late)

• Herbert Hoover attempted to convince employers to maintain high wages, an early example of jawboning, though with limited success in alleviating unemployment. (Source: Summary, DBpedia)

  During Great Depression

• Officials used jawboning and wage-price guideposts to deal with mounting inflationary pressures. (Source: Summary, DBpedia)

  During Democratic administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson

• George W. Bush criticized outgoing President Bill Clinton for not attempting to lower oil prices by 'jawboning OPEC' to increase supply. (Source: DBpedia)

  2000 US presidential election

• The 'Missouri vs Biden' case, which involved jawboning, was dismissed by the Supreme Court. (Source: Related Documents)

  Recent

• Jawboning has been discussed in the context of influencing oil prices. (Source: Summary)

  Recent

• Legal experts raised concerns that the Trump administration may have used jawboning to influence the suspension of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'. (Source: Web Search)

  Recent

Moral suasion

Moral suasion is an appeal to morality, in order to influence or change behavior. 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. In economics, moral suasion is more specifically defined as "the attempt to coerce private economic activity via governmental exhortation in directions not already defined or dictated by existing statute law." The "moral" aspect comes from the pressure for "moral responsibility" to operate in a way that is consistent with furthering the good of the economy. Moral suasion in this narrower sense is also sometimes known as jawboning. In rhetoric, moral suasion is closely aligned with Aristotle's concept of pathos, which is one of the three modes of persuasion and describes an appeal to the moral principles of the audience. There are two types of moral suasion: "Pure" moral suasion is an appeal for altruistic behaviour and is rarely used in economic policy. "Impure" moral suasion, which is the usual meaning of "moral suasion" in economics, is backed by explicit or implicit threats by authorities to provide incentives to comply with the authorities' wishes.

Web Search Results

• What is jawboning? And does it violate the First Amendment? - FIRE

  As Will Duffield wrote in a paper for the Cato Institute, “jawboning is the use of official speech to inappropriately compel private action.” In other words, it’s the government using its power — or the threat of it — to indirectly bully individuals, institutions, or organizations into doing their bidding when it can’t flat-out force them. Think of a grocery store owner who is visited by two large, intimidating men wearing suits. [...] Jawboning is an abuse of authority. If government officials use this tactic to silence disfavored speech, dissent, or criticism, it’s up to us to hold those officials accountable. But accountability is only possible with awareness, which is why transparency is so important. [...] This form of indirect censorship is called jawboning, and it’s a serious threat to free speech — particularly when it’s directed at expression on social media, where much of our discourse now occurs. ## What is jawboning?

• What Is Jawboning? Jimmy Kimmel Suspension Sparks Legal ...

  Jawboning refers to “the use of official speech to inappropriately compel private action,” as defined by the Cato Institute, as governments or public officials—who cannot directly punish private actors for speech they don’t like—can use strongman tactics to try and indirectly silence critics or influence private companies’ actions. [...] Legal experts have raised concerns that ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live” from its airwaves following the host’s controversial comments about the death of Charlie Kirk, could be because the Trump administration violated free speech protections through a practice known as “jawboning.” ## Key Facts [...] A government official just making comments about a private actor’s speech is not unlawful in itself, First Amendment advocates told The Miami Herald. But it can become unconstitutional when an official threatens to take action against that person or company based on their speech. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1963 case Bantam Books v. Sullivan the government cannot make threats that influences speech, and has upheld that decision in subsequent rulings. The court most recently decried jawboning

• Jawboning in the Era of New Governance

  Is “jawboning” a First Amendment issue or a state action issue? Sometimes known as “proxy censorship,” jawboning is a technique of pressuring private entities to take some kind of action that will affect another’s speech. To understand the constitutional implications of jawboning, and the rules that ought to apply, we need to consider how it is framed. [...] First, if we think that the main problem with jawboning is that informal pressure produces discriminatory decision making about user speech, we might turn to the First Amendment test set forth in Bantam Books v. Sullivan. Bantam Books holds that a “system of informal censorship,” enforced by coercion rather than legal sanction, violates the First Amendment. Under Bantam Books and its progeny, jawboning claims typically focus on discrete government efforts to pressure an entity to take action [...] Blog #### Jawboning Jawboning in the Era of New Governance ## Deep Dive # Jawboning in the Era of New Governance ### The increasing privatization of governance makes jawboning even more complicated. The increasing privatization of governance makes jawboning even more complicated. # Jawboning and the First Amendment A research initiative studying governmental efforts to pressure social media platforms to change their content moderation policies and practices

• Moral Suasion (Jawboning): Definition, How It Is Used, and Example

  In the U.S., moral suasion is also known as "jawboning," since it amounts to talk, in contrast to more forceful methods the Federal Reserve (Fed) and other policymakers have at their disposal. More specifically, attempts by central banks to influence the rate of inflation without resorting to open market operations are sometimes called "open mouth operations." ### Important [...] Moral suasion is the act of persuading a person or group to act in a certain way through rhetorical appeals, persuasion, or implicit and explicit threats—as opposed to the use of outright coercion or physical force. In economics, it is sometimes used in reference to central banks. ### Key Takeaways ## Understanding Moral Suasion [...] Anyone can, in principle, use moral suasion to try to convince another party to change their attitude or behavior, but in an economic context it generally refers to central bankers' use of persuasive tactics in public or private. It is often simply called "suasion" and the motives behind it are not always altruistic, but have more to do with the pursuit of particular policies.

• JAWBONING Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

  In the late 1800s, the noun jawbone meant "credit" (as in his money's gone, so he lives on jawbone), which was probably influenced by the practice of coaxing others to lend money by promising to pay it back. By the mid-1960s the verb to jawbone, meaning "to talk about to gain some end," was appearing regularly in the media. The noun jawboning made its print debut at the end of that decade, in reference to rhetorical practices that influenced the actions of the wealthy and powerful. All of these [...] ## More from Merriam-Webster Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word. ### Can you solve 4 words at once? ### Can you solve 4 words at once? #### Word of the Day #### lugubrious Listen to the pronunciation of lugubrious See Definitions and Examples » Get Word of the Day daily email! ## Popular in Grammar & Usage ### Using Bullet Points ( • ) ### Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate [...] Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word. Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points. Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing? vector image of a face with thought expression

"Jawboning", or "moral suasion," in 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. Wage-price guideposts were established, and the power of the presidency pushed businesses and labor into going along with those guideposts. The term attracted some derision and is often associated with the Biblical story in Judges 15:15 of Samson slaying a thousand of his enemies using the jawbone of an ass. Alfred E. Kahn, an economic advisor to Jimmy Carter, was particularly known for his dislike of the method. The term jawboning has also been used to refer to Herbert Hoover's efforts to convince employers to keep wages high as prices fell during the Great Depression. Hoover was successful in obtaining such agreements, but they did little to alleviate unemployment. The term has been used more recently in other contexts. 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.