Free Speech and Gresham's Law

Everything Libertarians Believe Is Wrong (pt. 4)

“Free speech is sacred,” they say, as if turning society into a verbal landfill filled with conspiracy theories, propaganda, and nonsense is some divine virtue. If free speech worked as advertised, our ‘marketplace of ideas’ wouldn’t look like a dollar store full of broken toys. But go ahead—tell me again how the truth always wins, while another viral TikTok convinces millions that drinking raw sewage is a health hack.

Gresham’s Law states that bad money drives out good. When debased currency circulates freely, people hoard the valuable and spend the worthless. The result is an economy overrun with fraud, where truth holds no value. The same happens in a world of unrestricted speech.

Free speech is treated as a sacred ideal, a guarantee that truth will flourish. In reality, it ensures the exact opposite. It creates a battlefield where the worst ideas—because they are the easiest, loudest, and most emotionally gratifying—inevitably triumph. Good ideas require patience, discipline, and critical thought to grasp. Bad ideas require nothing but impulse and repetition. The former demand engagement. The latter offer convenience.

There is no natural mechanism that ensures the best ideas will rise to the top. Instead, the rules of engagement favor those who appeal to emotion, outrage, and tribalism. A society that allows all ideas equal footing does not cultivate wisdom. It cultivates deception. The most viral, seductive narratives will always win, even when they are false.

This is the flaw at the heart of free speech. It does not lead to a rational marketplace of ideas. It leads to an environment where manipulation outcompetes reason. Where truth must fight uphill while falsehood glides forward effortlessly. The assumption that an open forum results in the triumph of truth is not only wrong—it is historically and empirically disproven. Free speech does not protect truth. It protects the loudest voice, regardless of merit.

The Structural Advantage of Bad Ideas

The people who believe free speech guarantees truth must also believe that grocery stores only stock the healthiest foods. Newsflash: People don’t gravitate toward truth. They gravitate toward what’s easy. That’s why fast food chains thrive while kale rots in the discount bin. Given the choice between a well-reasoned argument and an emotionally charged soundbite, the average person will take the one that fits on a bumper sticker.

Bad ideas do not need to be true. They only need to be persuasive. This is their greatest strength. Truth requires careful explanation, logical consistency, and a willingness to confront hard realities. Falsehood requires none of this. It only needs to be compelling.

Good ideas demand effort. They challenge assumptions, force uncomfortable realizations, and often require personal change. Most people resist this. They prefer simplicity over complexity, reassurance over doubt, pleasure over sacrifice. Lies, by their very nature, cater to these preferences. They remove struggle, soothe fear, and promise easy solutions to difficult problems.

A good idea often carries a cost. The truth about economics requires fiscal restraint. The truth about morality requires self-discipline. The truth about human nature requires humility. Bad ideas eliminate these burdens. They offer prosperity without effort, freedom without responsibility, and self-worth without virtue. In a world where both good and bad ideas compete on equal ground, bad ideas always hold the advantage.

Free speech does not create an environment where truth and falsehood fight fairly. It creates a system where the most convenient, emotionally charged, and socially acceptable ideas dominate. The more palatable the lie, the more rapidly it spreads. And since people are more drawn to validation than correction, the falsehood that flatters will always defeat the truth that convicts.

This is not a failure of education. It is not a temporary distortion caused by technology. It is the natural consequence of an open marketplace of ideas. When every voice is given equal standing, the most appealing lie will always outcompete the most inconvenient truth.

The Free Speech Fallacy: How It Fails in Practice

The idea that rational debate prevails in a free society is adorable. If that were true, our most influential thinkers wouldn’t be social media grifters with the intellectual depth of a puddle. People don’t choose ideas based on reason—they choose them based on whether they make them feel smart at brunch. The entire concept of a ‘marketplace of ideas’ assumes people are thoughtful consumers. Spoiler alert: They’re not.

The defenders of free speech argue that truth will eventually win. They believe that rational debate, open dialogue, and the free exchange of ideas will naturally lead to the triumph of reason. This is a fantasy.

People do not seek truth. They seek affirmation. They do not gravitate toward logic and evidence. They follow emotion, tribal identity, and personal convenience. The assumption that individuals, given all the information, will thoughtfully weigh arguments and select the best ideas is not just naive—it is demonstrably false.

Modern technology has made this clearer than ever. Social media does not reward accuracy or depth. It rewards engagement. The more inflammatory a statement, the further it spreads. The more it triggers outrage or excitement, the more the algorithm amplifies it. Truth, in contrast, is often complex, nuanced, and difficult to reduce to a viral soundbite. It is boring. It does not inspire mobs. It does not confirm biases. So it is ignored.

Lies move faster than truth. They are designed to be shared, to be easily understood, and to evoke a reaction. A lie can be simple: “Everything wrong with the world is the fault of them.” The truth is rarely so clean-cut. It requires explanation. It requires people to think beyond their instincts, and most will not.

In practice, free speech does not create an enlightened society. It creates an arena where deception, propaganda, and emotional manipulation win by default. A rational marketplace of ideas assumes rational participants. But people do not act rationally. They act tribally, selfishly, and impulsively. And that ensures that free speech—far from leading to truth—becomes a tool for the worst ideas to dominate.

Historical Proof: Free Speech Leads to Mass Delusion

“We must protect all ideas!” Translation: “We must let stupidity roam free so it can trample common sense into the dirt.” No, not all ideas deserve a platform. Some deserve to be laughed out of existence. A society that refuses to regulate speech is a society that willingly hands the microphone to the dumbest person in the room and then acts surprised when everything collapses.

History does not support the idea that free speech leads to truth. If anything, it shows the opposite. Again and again, societies with unrestricted speech have not gravitated toward reason but toward hysteria, propaganda, and collective self-destruction.

Consider the rise of totalitarian regimes. The free exchange of ideas did not prevent the spread of communism or fascism. It accelerated it. These ideologies flourished not because they were true, but because they were emotionally compelling, simple to grasp, and provided an easy scapegoat for societal struggles. The Bolsheviks, the Nazis, the Maoists—each used speech as a weapon to flood the public with persuasive falsehoods. Their ideas were not superior. They were effective. And that was all that mattered.

Look at economic fallacies that refuse to die. Free speech has not eliminated belief in socialism, despite its repeated historical failures. Every time it collapses—whether in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, or countless other nations—apologists rewrite history and spread a new version of the lie. “Real socialism has never been tried.” Free speech allows them to do so unchecked, and because their message is easier to accept than hard economic realities, people believe it.

Consider the modern information landscape. Conspiracy theories, celebrity worship, and outright fabrications dominate public discourse. Critical thinking is not rewarded. Sensationalism is. The free flow of ideas has not made society more informed. It has made it more gullible, more reactionary, and more vulnerable to mass manipulation.

Unrestricted speech does not create a well-reasoned society. It creates an arena where truth must fight an unwinnable war against deception, where rational discourse is drowned out by noise. The assumption that people, given unlimited information, will choose wisely has no basis in reality. They choose what feels good, what flatters them, and what requires the least thought. Free speech does not guard against mass delusion.

It ensures it.