Dear All: To shift slightly... Aren't there conflicting metaphors here? How >> can something be free, and yet be a marketplace? In marketplaces people >> are orderly, follow the rules, pay for things, etc. The idea of a >> "free marketplace of ideas" is inherently contradictory. Either it is an >> anarchy, or it is a marketplace. What am I missing? > > My feeling is that when someone uses the term "free", "equality", ( > in engineering - "robust", "optimal", etc.) It must always be applied with > respects to something. I assume the congressman means "free" with respects > to "entry into the marketplace", essentially against rent seeking, barriers > to entry, etc. I've always found this particularly annoying in political > cases applying "equality", where capitalist and communist systems apply > it to different parameters (opportunity vs. wealth distribution ).
Also, the Internet is an anarchy if sorts (there is no overall government besides technological necessity, only localised governments [site administration] and citizen action [wikis, comments, and so on]), and a marketplace in that ideas (including any content, any media) compete via appeal and/or quality for attention/consumption, just as businesses in a market, free (in the 'enterprise' sense) or otherwise, compete with prices for customers. Sincerely, Arlo James Barnes
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