Anti-Americanism in France

Originally posted by FMF

A choice about what they approve of and disapprove of? A choice about how they act based on what they agree with and disagree with? I should hope so.

What effect did TRIPS have on that free market?

How are things with TRIPS nowadays anyway, I haven't kept up.

There comes a certain point when the choices of the stakeholders formerly known as citizens can become an obstacle to efficiency and must then be treated as a form of protectionism.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Don't you mean 'the market of ideas' as being part of 'the free market' -- or is there a distinction between 'the free market of ideas' and 'the (not free) market of ideas'?

Let's take Indonesia for example. Under the Soeharto regime there would have been a 'market of ideas' among his trusted advisers. Occasionally one of these advisers would be expelled, imprisoned [or perhaps even murdered] if they pushed too hard with an idea that rocked the boat. Post-Soeharto we've had a plethora of new political parties - even to the the point of political dissipation perhaps - I think 28 contested our most recent election, as opposed to the one party that always won and the two that always lost but gave the impression of there being a 'free market of ideas'. Not that it's perfect nowadays, by any stretch of the imagination.