Blog 7: The Marketplace of Ideas

 

Last Tuesday, Leo and I partnered up to discuss the eight values of Free Expression. After some conversation, we narrowed the topic down to our favorite value: the Marketplace of Ideas. This concept, founded by John Milton, states that "the test of the truth or acceptance of ideas depends on their competition with one another and not on the opinion of a censor, whether one provided by the government or by some other authority." (https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/999/marketplace-of-ideas)

In other words, expression of ideas should not be censored by the government as competing ideas and truths can form a "market" of sorts. And in a market, the better items will absolutely sell more than the lesser ones.While certain items could be controversial, putting bans on items that could sell well is a bad idea because unless the item is clearly dangerous, it would disrupt the marketplace.

Does this sound like a concept mentioned in class recently? The marketplace of ideas perfectly describes the concept of prior restraint and why we should not have it! The first amendment gave us freedom of speech and the press, yet we had controversial books banned by the government for a while because they were "offensive". This was considered constitutional until the Near v Minn case in 1931. Like the Marketplace of Ideas, texts with controversial messages should not be censored by the government as they can only be banned if they involve fighting words or incitement. There can be a subsequent punishment for causing violence; however, controversial opinions are not meant to be censored by the government. This is the most interesting value because it perfectly fits prior restraint into terms of business.