I suppose we can now say, 16 years on, that no, many were not in fact really all that in favor of free speech and other civil libertarian positions. At best we can probably say they were in favor of free speech only for those who agreed with them.
It's amazing how way off a lot of these old Econlog posts are given what we've seen happen since then. Especially on culture/politics the predictions and observations are just wildly off.
I appreciate the reposts for exactly that reason. It is useful to see where things made sense before but with hind sight we see where things came apart and refine the theory. Some of the outcomes were really surprising, in part because of misunderstanding the state of the game, some because of misunderstanding the rules of the game.
I will not answer the various questions posed by Bryan, but as an economist that is supportive of some types of regulation, more investment in public goods, and a modicum of re-distributive programs, let me give my perspective on the regulation of speech:
- Free speech is foundational to human dignity, to the exchange of ideas that allow for improvement of our lives and society, and to the functioning of democracy. So, the benefits of free speech are very large.
- One's speech may have negative externalities (e.g., some may feel distressed for hearing the opinions of others).
- However, in the interest of a healthier, robust society, I believe it is better to promote resilience to unwanted speech than to try to shelter those that dislike certain speech.
- Speech, on its own, is not violence. In cases where speech directly incites violence or in situations of direct interpersonal harassment (e.g., following someone in the street insulting the person), I do believe there is a limited role for the state to penalize it.
- Historically, regulation of speech is most associated with the most despotic regimes in the world (of the fascist, religious fanatic, or communist variety).
- Some modern democratic countries have some speech restrictions that go beyond those in the United States, but it is unclear to me that they get much benefit from them.
- In summary, from an utilitarian perspective, the benefits of free speech seem overwhelming larger than the benefits of regulating speech on most cases.
- Also, I believe that a "natural rights" ethical perspective favors a strong presumption in favor of free speech.
- This is a fundamentally different situation from regulating other externalities in the physical world (e.g., pollution), whose costs to the third parties can often significantly exceed the benefits to those engaging in the activity.
- Also, I believe that the regulation of externalities, like pollution, is unlikely have a similar slippery slope potential (of moving us towards an unfree society) as regulating speech.
- Stepping away from the utilitarian perspective, I (and I believe most people) do not see a right to pollute or generate harm to others as core to personal freedom as the right to speak freely.
- Our freedom ends where others freedom begins. But if you don't want to hear what someone has to say, just move along and don't listen :)
Most certainly! As with most things in life, there are costs and benefits to such activities. My contentions are (1) the net-benefits of free speech are overwhelmingly more positive than the net-benefits of certain activities that generate environmental pollution; and (2) on an intuitive basis, most people in our societies believe that there is more a right to free speech than a right to engage in activities that generate pollution (and I share this intuition).
Was your goal to convince civil libertarian economists to embrace the free market in other markets? Cause that may backfire: You may end up convincing civil libertarian economists to embrace regulation of the market of ideas/culture. Before you agreed on one thing. And now you agree on nothing! 😛
As I'm sure you know Coase asked the same question 50 years ago, and answered "The explanation of the paradox is self-interest and self-esteem. Self-esteem leads the intellectuals to magnify the importance of their own market. That others should be regulated seems natural, particularly as many of the intellectuals see themselves as doing the regulating. But self-interest combines with self-esteem to ensure that, while others are regulated, regulation should no apply to them. Ans si it is possible to libe with these contradictory views about the role of government in these markets. It is the conclusion that matters. It may not be a nice explanation, but I can think of no other for this strange situation." pg. 386 Coase, R. 1974. "The Market for Goods and the Market for ideas" The American Economic Review. https://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~guan/courses/Coase74.pdf
Not an economist, just a civil libertarian who’s not an absolute economic one. The obvious answer to me is that most people don’t think in the hyper-ideological way that most libertarians do. For example, I’m generally in favor of whatever gives people more control over their own lives. In many cases, that will involve less government, but in certain others (health care, public infrastructure, basic safety net) it’s perfectly clear to me that more government can actually result in more options and choices for most regular people. Sure, from a philosophical libertarian pov, this is inconsistent. But to most people who aren’t philosophical libertarians (ie, most people) why would that matter?
You might have unintentionally added fuel to the fire of censorship. Regulators are increasingly talking about costs of misinformation, now they would add lack of perfect competition in media and information decemination as reason for State selection of proper outlets and breakup of media companies that cause negative externalities , I.e news or perspective which run counter to their own notion of proper information and takes.
Wonderful reflection. But I think that although people say they are pro free speech, pro freedom of consciousness, pro free art, and so on; as soon as you talk to them about some "weird" idea that could provoke institutional changes if it were widely accepted, then they tell you about Popper's paradox.
They are basically "pro-civil liberties (restrictions apply)."
One distinction I see is that non-Linertrain economists do not support "regulation" in the abstract as they might "free speech" in the abstract.
A second is that some regulation like Pigou taxation is seen as moving markets closer to the free market ideal. (It's just a technological accident that emitters of CO2 do not bear the full costs of their emissions the way bakers do bear the full cost of the inputs they use.) If they saw a parallel with freedom of religion they might advance that, too.
Third, some people are willing to sacrifice some small diminution of real income to stealthily transfer some of the remaining income to poorer people when more transparent transfers seem foreclosed. Again, no obvious parallels with the right of assembly come to mind.
"Just so you can’t accuse me of having a hidden agenda, let me state my agenda openly. I think that the typical social democratic economist’s arguments in favor of civil liberties are much weaker than the typical free-market economist’s arguments in favor of laissez-faire for the broader economy."
..then maybe you can answer another vexing riddle too: do you think that apples are better than oranges?
I suppose we can now say, 16 years on, that no, many were not in fact really all that in favor of free speech and other civil libertarian positions. At best we can probably say they were in favor of free speech only for those who agreed with them.
It's amazing how way off a lot of these old Econlog posts are given what we've seen happen since then. Especially on culture/politics the predictions and observations are just wildly off.
I appreciate the reposts for exactly that reason. It is useful to see where things made sense before but with hind sight we see where things came apart and refine the theory. Some of the outcomes were really surprising, in part because of misunderstanding the state of the game, some because of misunderstanding the rules of the game.
I will not answer the various questions posed by Bryan, but as an economist that is supportive of some types of regulation, more investment in public goods, and a modicum of re-distributive programs, let me give my perspective on the regulation of speech:
- Free speech is foundational to human dignity, to the exchange of ideas that allow for improvement of our lives and society, and to the functioning of democracy. So, the benefits of free speech are very large.
- One's speech may have negative externalities (e.g., some may feel distressed for hearing the opinions of others).
- However, in the interest of a healthier, robust society, I believe it is better to promote resilience to unwanted speech than to try to shelter those that dislike certain speech.
- Speech, on its own, is not violence. In cases where speech directly incites violence or in situations of direct interpersonal harassment (e.g., following someone in the street insulting the person), I do believe there is a limited role for the state to penalize it.
- Historically, regulation of speech is most associated with the most despotic regimes in the world (of the fascist, religious fanatic, or communist variety).
- Some modern democratic countries have some speech restrictions that go beyond those in the United States, but it is unclear to me that they get much benefit from them.
- In summary, from an utilitarian perspective, the benefits of free speech seem overwhelming larger than the benefits of regulating speech on most cases.
- Also, I believe that a "natural rights" ethical perspective favors a strong presumption in favor of free speech.
- This is a fundamentally different situation from regulating other externalities in the physical world (e.g., pollution), whose costs to the third parties can often significantly exceed the benefits to those engaging in the activity.
- Also, I believe that the regulation of externalities, like pollution, is unlikely have a similar slippery slope potential (of moving us towards an unfree society) as regulating speech.
- Stepping away from the utilitarian perspective, I (and I believe most people) do not see a right to pollute or generate harm to others as core to personal freedom as the right to speak freely.
- Our freedom ends where others freedom begins. But if you don't want to hear what someone has to say, just move along and don't listen :)
Being free to generate some noise and chemical pollution are core to our continued existence.
Most certainly! As with most things in life, there are costs and benefits to such activities. My contentions are (1) the net-benefits of free speech are overwhelmingly more positive than the net-benefits of certain activities that generate environmental pollution; and (2) on an intuitive basis, most people in our societies believe that there is more a right to free speech than a right to engage in activities that generate pollution (and I share this intuition).
I was referring to pollution caused by being alive. Most people do not believe there is more of a right to free speech than to breath.
That I certainly agree!
Was your goal to convince civil libertarian economists to embrace the free market in other markets? Cause that may backfire: You may end up convincing civil libertarian economists to embrace regulation of the market of ideas/culture. Before you agreed on one thing. And now you agree on nothing! 😛
Great, Bryan.
As you probably know, Coase posed the same question in 1974:
https://econjwatch.org/File+download/1216/CoaseMar2022.pdf?mimetype=pdf
I'd say social media censorship is a lot more popular among this group, along with other intellectuals and elites, than if you asked 10 years ago.
As I'm sure you know Coase asked the same question 50 years ago, and answered "The explanation of the paradox is self-interest and self-esteem. Self-esteem leads the intellectuals to magnify the importance of their own market. That others should be regulated seems natural, particularly as many of the intellectuals see themselves as doing the regulating. But self-interest combines with self-esteem to ensure that, while others are regulated, regulation should no apply to them. Ans si it is possible to libe with these contradictory views about the role of government in these markets. It is the conclusion that matters. It may not be a nice explanation, but I can think of no other for this strange situation." pg. 386 Coase, R. 1974. "The Market for Goods and the Market for ideas" The American Economic Review. https://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~guan/courses/Coase74.pdf
Not an economist, just a civil libertarian who’s not an absolute economic one. The obvious answer to me is that most people don’t think in the hyper-ideological way that most libertarians do. For example, I’m generally in favor of whatever gives people more control over their own lives. In many cases, that will involve less government, but in certain others (health care, public infrastructure, basic safety net) it’s perfectly clear to me that more government can actually result in more options and choices for most regular people. Sure, from a philosophical libertarian pov, this is inconsistent. But to most people who aren’t philosophical libertarians (ie, most people) why would that matter?
Price and wage controls in WW2 led directly to the US phenomenon of employment-linked health insurance.
So I think it could be very much argued that market regulations not only reduced incomes, but led to very poor health outcomes.
You might have unintentionally added fuel to the fire of censorship. Regulators are increasingly talking about costs of misinformation, now they would add lack of perfect competition in media and information decemination as reason for State selection of proper outlets and breakup of media companies that cause negative externalities , I.e news or perspective which run counter to their own notion of proper information and takes.
Wonderful reflection. But I think that although people say they are pro free speech, pro freedom of consciousness, pro free art, and so on; as soon as you talk to them about some "weird" idea that could provoke institutional changes if it were widely accepted, then they tell you about Popper's paradox.
They are basically "pro-civil liberties (restrictions apply)."
One distinction I see is that non-Linertrain economists do not support "regulation" in the abstract as they might "free speech" in the abstract.
A second is that some regulation like Pigou taxation is seen as moving markets closer to the free market ideal. (It's just a technological accident that emitters of CO2 do not bear the full costs of their emissions the way bakers do bear the full cost of the inputs they use.) If they saw a parallel with freedom of religion they might advance that, too.
Third, some people are willing to sacrifice some small diminution of real income to stealthily transfer some of the remaining income to poorer people when more transparent transfers seem foreclosed. Again, no obvious parallels with the right of assembly come to mind.
"Just so you can’t accuse me of having a hidden agenda, let me state my agenda openly. I think that the typical social democratic economist’s arguments in favor of civil liberties are much weaker than the typical free-market economist’s arguments in favor of laissez-faire for the broader economy."
..then maybe you can answer another vexing riddle too: do you think that apples are better than oranges?