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: The Buck Stops Here

Coase and the First Amendment

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

Rick Hills asks: It seems odd that the law distrusts the judgments of citizens in ordinary commercial transactions so much more than their judgments in political transactions. The law stringently regulates the quality of drugs, food, cars, and consumer products generally on the theory that consumers are not capable of accurately evaluating these products for themselves. But the First Amendment prohibits similar regulation of the political marketplace, apparently on the theory that ignorance can more easily be tolerated with matters like nuclear war and fiscal crisis than with matters like the purchase of a tube of toothpaste.At the very least, should the law sanction blatantly misleading political statements more aggressively? Should there be an FTC of political ads? Ronald Coase once wrote an essay with precisely the same theme: "The market for goods and the market for ideas," in the American Economic Review (May 1974)...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on May 07, 2008 (boomark / email).