Defending The Marketplace of Ideas

Markets aren’t just about money and goods. Free exchange doesn’t only make people better off, as it moves capital and goods and other resources to their highest value use. Free exchange also makes them smarter, in the sense of making ideas widely available and then subjecting them to rigorous testing so that the best ones rise to the top. Free exchange and the discipline of competition are central to the world of ideas too. The“marketplace of ideas” isn’t just a pretty phrase; it is how we increase the supply of useful knowledge and move those ideas into the hands of those who can wring the greatest value out of them for society.