by Price signals and free speech are very much connected and perform a similar role in different aspects of society.
Prices are information. Price signals in a market economy are data points that express a relationship between supply and demand. That information provides signals to producers and consumers. The spread between the cost of production and the eventual sale price, subjectively determined by the data point at which a seller and buyer decide to make an exchange, is profit. The greater the profit margin, the louder the producer’s signal to produce more, all things being equal. Price signals impact other aspects of production and consumption cycles and can involve quite a bit of complexity, but they are required to coordinate production and consumption within an economy.
Price signals are by no means perfect. Bubble happens. People panic and sell things well beneath their market price. Distortions are created by exogenous factors, such as weather events or even government regulation. There is no reason to make the good the enemy of the perfect. So we do the best with what we can to coordinate our economy in a decentralized manner. Prices play an integral and essential role in our economy, or any economy that attempts to meet the needs and desires of consumers.
Opinions and free speech play a similar role. But instead of producing data points for producers and consumers, they provide information and an exchange of information between the public and the institutions who serve them. In a complex, modern, pluralistic society, these institutions may in part or whole include the government, the corporate media, corporate America, small businesses, religious communities, and any manner of civic institutions.
Giving power to corporate America… Actually, let me rephrase that… Giving power to a few thousand people in San Francisco to decide the acceptable boundaries of public debate and opinion is dangerous. It is hazardous for the same reasons price controls, or a complete lack of a price system is harmful. The public needs to express its opinions, and the institutions who serve them need to know and be aware of those opinions. Voting is one simple and discrete way in which to express views to institutions and government. But that only happens so often. Relying upon the ballot to discern the public’s opinions once a year, or every few years, would be like taking a measure of how much corn is available once per year, then expecting to have a stable and adequate corn supply all year round. The information would be wholly insufficient. So, to supplement voting, we have free speech, where people may voice their opinion about any number of topics — not just government — any time and any day.
Free speech is a dynamic system of feedback. Sure, some of that information may be trite or inflammatory, just as there are bubbles and crashes in a market system. But, again, it is the best system we have. So we do the best we can. Unfortunately, institutions have decided to build barriers to free speech. We have reached a point where it undeniable what power has been ceded and to whom. Sadly, the people, who in past decades we would have relied upon to defend this right, seem to be the most ardent supports of speech restrictions, apparently based on short-term political concerns. Like so many other issues, the ultimately short-sighted thinking will have long-term, unpredictable negative consequences. The supporters of these harmful policies, entirely at odds with our system and norms, will deny any responsibility because they are rarely responsible for anything if you are to ask them. (Note: I digress here. I just can’t help myself, given the betrayal I feel. They told me that fascism would come with a Bible and a sword. Instead it came as Skylar in Manhattan clicking a button.)
The rules of the game, I am informed, are thus: silence is consent. The entirety of all civic institutions in America have not voted nor consented to this establishment of concentrated corporate control of speech in the hands of a few entities controlling several trillion dollars of market capitalization. But they are entirely silent. Through their inaction, they are communicated something. They are telling us that the dynamic and purpose of free speech — to inform and provide institutions with feedback regarding wants and needs of the public — have boundaries that must be policed. Not only will these boundaries be policed, they will constantly change, and shall be inconsistently applied, and will be become increasingly more constrictive over time. What was once distasteful has become hate speech. And what was once critiques of power will become sedition. What was milquetoast, centrist policies one year will become extreme positions years later.
This isn’t some imagined soft totalitarianism. It is totalitarianism. And because it is being imposed by the so-called free market via terms of service, rather than government and executive fiat, does not make it any less totalitarian. Furthermore, it does not eliminate problems posed by having an incomplete information and feedback system in our society. We can’t get hung up on particulars but must understand the spirit of free speech. Dangers to free speech are the same, whether coming from government or concentrated capital. The means may differ, but the consequences are the same, and we must focus on the consequences.
If these are the rules of the game, then so be it. The public is learning: noblesse oblige is dead. We have suspected as much for a long time. The people who rule over us and who control the levers of power, have become increasingly disconnected from the vast majority of the public. In theory, there were feedback mechanisms to control them. But that mechanism is being destroyed. Imagine for a moment trying to manage GM or Boeing or Microsoft and not knowing the cost of labor or resources necessary to produce your products and services. It would be completely impossible. It is similarly impossible for government, or any institution which yields power, to serve the public with a neutered system informing them regarding the public’s views. Government and institutions are already not trusted and are viewed as unresponsive to the public. And that is with a functioning system of feedback. Imagine what future awaits us where the only permissible opinions are those dictated by a handful of tech oligarchs and their allies in northern Virginia. Perhaps it is time give up on any pretense that these institutions service the public. They serve themselves, and probably have for a long time. All that has changed is our perception and our reckoning with this fact.
We can hope this trend reverses, but I do not expect it to do so. We can not control the actions of others, nor the course of events, but we can control our response to it. We need to rethink our relationship with institutions who, quite explicitly, don’t care about what the public thinks — a public they pretend to serve. If we have learned anything in recent years, this government is not entirely our government. It is mostly their government. They are very much committed to keeping it that way. And we do not consent.
But how will they know?
