ABSTRACT

This chapter outlines the basic principles and problems for evaluating the agenda of social discussion. It discusses three institutional setups for implementing these principles: the free market in ideas, a publicly supported marketplace of ideas, and finally a democratic method for choosing the agenda for deliberation. The division of labor within secondary associations takes two forms. There is a division between those who are primarily concerned with elaborating aims and those who specialize in the technical and empirical study of the society and the government's relation to the society and the study of how to implement aims. The chapter explores the familiar idea that institutions of deliberation ought to be a marketplace of ideas. It also explores an egalitarian modification of the marketplace of ideas that has been proposed recently. Both of these views propose a market method for choosing the deliberative agenda.