Presentation
Free speech is often defended as a “marketplace of ideas,” but that metaphor is misleading. It gets markets and speech wrong. Market competition doesn't ensure the best product wins. It keeps incumbents from locking in their advantage by making entry and disruption possible.
This talk argues that free speech serves the same function in civic life; it keeps power contestable by keeping criticism and dissent live options for ordinary people, even when the speech is unpopular or wrong. Thrasher will argue that the threat today is not only censorship, but also the rising costs of dissent, which make silence the rational choice.
His claim is that a healthy speech culture is a civic commons requiring clear access norms, fair procedures, and multiple venues for dispute. What’s scarce is not speech, but the shared capacity to sustain disagreement without turning conflict into punishment. The goal is not comfort. It is, as Jefferson put it, the “arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason.”.
About The Speaker
Before joining the Chase Center, Dr. Thrasher was the associate professor at Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. His research explores how norms, markets, and institutions help sustain a diverse, dynamic, and free society.
Thrasher earned his PhD and master’s from the University of Arizona and his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado.
He is co-author of the widely used textbook Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Introduction (Princeton, 2021) and The Ethics of Capitalism (OUP, 2020). He has published extensively in journals such as Philosophy & Public Affairs, The Journal of Politics, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, The American Journal of Political Science, and Cognition, among others.