Talk:Marketplace of ideas

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Mill and the marketplace of ideas? Doubtful

This article claims that the marketplace of ideas metaphor can be found in Mill's On Liberty, though it notes that the phrase appears nowhere in Mill. However, I think that's doubtful and presented as original research. Mill doesn't say anything about market efficiency and free speech. Quite to the contrary, he's very concerned with a tyranny of the majority, which is what we would expect if we relied on the market mechanisms to weed out bad ideas. Anyway, the notion that the marketplace of ideas is in Mill is nowhere cited (though I'm sure that you could find scholars who make this claim). Here's someone who makes the contrary claim: Jill Gordon, "John Stuart Mill and the 'Marketplace of Ideas,' " Social Theory and Practice 23 (1997). So the idea that this is in Mill is at least controversial. It should be removed from the article. Were this an article about Mill, it may be worth mentioning the controversy. But it isn't, so we shouldn't.68.63.148.22 (talk) 13:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you remove the text or rewrite it and see what happens. GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:36, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It's correct that Mill does not use this phrase or even an argument that could be neatly summarized with this phrase. It's a popular misconception that he does. I've edited accordingly. Metamagician3000 (talk) 06:08, 1 July 2020 (UTC)