public goods, market control, externalities, and imperfect information

May 17, 2018 11:09 PM

Democracy is not a truth machine

In a democracy people are free to express their opinions and question those of others. This is an important personal freedom, and also essential to the very idea of government by discussion. But it has also been held to be instrumentally important because in open public debate true ideas will conquer false ones by their merit, and the people will see the truth for themselves. In other words, democracy has an epistemic function as a kind of truth machine. From this it follows that in a democracy there should be no dogma: no knowledge protected from public challenge and debate. Yet this whole argument is founded on embarrassing misconceptions of the nature of truth and of the working of democracy.

- Thomas R. Wells

John Stuart Mill and the "Marketplace of Ideas", Jill Gordon, Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 235-249

THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS: A LEGITIMIZING MYTH{PDF], Stanley Ingber, Duke Law Journal, VOLUME 1984 FEBRUARY NUMBER 1

Theorists have often heralded the first amendment as creating a neutral marketplace of ideas. Proponents of this model view the market as essential to our society's efforts to discover truth and foster effective popular participation in government. Professor Ingber asserts that the theoretical underpinnings of this model are based on assumptions of rational decision making that are implausible in modern society. He insists that, in reality, the market is severely skewed in favor of an entrenched power structure and ideology. Professor Ingber explores efforts to reform and correct this market defect and finds them equally flawed He concludes that the marketplace may fulfill its alleged functions only ff we explore a theory of freedom of conduct; the market as it exists today simply fine-tunes differences among elites, while difusing pressure for change by preserving a myth of personal autonomy needed to legitimate a governing system strongly biased toward the status quo.

The Critic and the Clown, Corey Robin

HOW MUCH DOES A BELIEF COST?: REVISITING THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS [PDF]GREGORY BRAZEAL

The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas [PDF], R. H. Coase, The American Economic Review, Vol. 64, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Eightysixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1974), pp. 384-391.

The arguments that I will be considering long antedate the passage of the First Amendment (which obviously incorporated views already held) and there is some danger for economists, although not necessarily for American lawyers, in confining our discussion to the First Amendment rather than considering the general problem of which it is a part. ...
What is the general view that I will be examining? It is that, in the market for goods, government regulation is desirable whereas, in the market for ideas, government regulation is undesirable and should be strictly limited. In the market for goods, the government is commonly regarded as competent to regulate and properly motivated. Consumers lack the ability to make the appropriate choices. Producers often exercise monopolistic power and, in any case, without some form of government intervention, would not act in a way which promotes the public interest. In the market for ideas, the position is very different.

posted by the man of twists and turns (10 comments total)

OK, I just skimmed the first link, which is far too long to read thoroughly at this hour of the morning (and written in a kind of philosopher-speak which I personally find tedious), but Wells talks about "facts, those stubborn bits of the objective world that also refuse democracy's authority" and says "In general, the truth is something one looks up, not something one has to decide on for oneself." This presupposes that the Best People somehow automatically know what is True and Factual, and the rest of us should shut up and listen to them. And sure enough, we get a recommendation straight out of Plato's Council of Guardians:

It is for this reason that successful democracy requires setting up and protecting independent and non-democratic spaces and institutions - specialised epistemic communities with the authority to investigate truth.

This is your basic elitist bullshit. Not so long ago it was Accepted Scientific Truth that races were real and immutable and arranged in a hierarchy (which, conveniently, made European colonialism not only inevitable but godly); it was Accepted Scientific Truth that continental drift was a crazy idea that should be suppressed; it was Accepted Scientific Truth that ulcers were caused by diet. Oops! The fact is, all facts are provisional and subject to refinement or rejection, and to pretend otherwise is to join the long list of people who prefer false certainty to living with the real, messy world.
posted by languagehat at 6:57 AM on May 18, 2018 [7 favorites]

his presupposes that the Best People somehow automatically know what is True and Factual, and the rest of us should shut up and listen to them.

This... is quite a huge leap.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:19 AM on May 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

It is for this reason that successful democracy requires setting up and protecting independent and non-democratic spaces and institutions - specialised epistemic communities with the authority to investigate truth.

I think we call those "courts."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:54 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

There are many other such spaces, with a figurative sign on the front door saying "put up or fuck off."

This is not a bad thing.
posted by ocschwar at 10:50 AM on May 18, 2018

> This... is quite a huge leap.

Not really; it's a rhetorical exaggeration of a real phenomenon. Like I said, I dislike the muted philosopher-speak with which the article is constructed. If you prefer all comments to be expressed in muted philosopher-speak, you may have wound up in the wrong venue.
posted by languagehat at 11:51 AM on May 18, 2018

On the other hand, the comment section for an article on philosophy might be exactly the place to use "muted philosopher-speak", and perhaps the folks who would like to actually discuss philosophy in philosophical terms in the comment section for an article on philosophy are actually the ones in the correct venue.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:13 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm not making a stylistic critique. Its simply a huge jump to go from 1) there is an objective truth out there, therefore 2) there is an elite group of snobs who are better than all the others and should rule those dummies below.

If thats the argument you are making, I can see why you would want to discuss aesthetics over logic.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:15 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Take this as you will, but this post reminds me of a book that's still on my todo reading list: The Fiction of a Thinkable World, Michael Steinberg

(very rough gist: capitalism/markets/democracy depend on a (flawed) notion that individuals make independent decisions)
posted by spbmp at 3:08 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wells cherry-picks some notions that support his thesis that we need "specialised epistemic communities with the authority to investigate truth": climate change denial, anti-vaxxers, birtherism. But as languagehat notes, you can make just as good a case that traditional gatekeepers made even worse mistakes, from ideologies of racism and sexism to (say) the persecution of Semmelweis or Turing.

I doubt it's simple to discover if Americans are more or less informed than 50 or 100 years ago, despite The Internet. Offhand, probably more informed, but if he really believes the opposite, then as a philosopher/economist, shouldn't he defer on this issue to the political scientists?
posted by zompist at 8:02 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Last I checked the peer-review process for scientific journals avoided recruitment of Joe and Jill from off the street to analyze a paper on physics or a statistics heavy social mobility study. Yes, dysfunctional ideas have come from the academy. I am in no way defending the need to talk about the academy critically. To paraphrase Churchill, the Academy is the worst system of scientific inquiry except for all other systems. What other systems you ask? Well there was the Soviet science from Communist principles, the Aristotelian science from induction, science by legislation, etc...

Racial science, eugenics, climate change denial, and such avoid things like answering critics with repeatable data or examining alternative explanations which better fit the facts. Should we have something better? Absolutely. Anybody have that system resting in their back pocket?
posted by Ignorantsavage at 11:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]