Freedom and Culture: Why We Should Not Buy Commercial Speech

Abstract

It is not surprising that a commercial culture would grant special constitutional protection to commercial speech. There is, however, no reason to suppose that special protection for commercial speech in our cultural context promotes the overall freedom and well-being of the public. A strong case can be made that in our culture, reducing the constitutional protection of commercial speech would actually tend to promote freedom and well-being in the long term. This is not because some commercial speech is false, fraudulent, or deceptive. The focus of attention should instead be on non-deceptive commercial speech, framed in the broader context of our culture. Because this Article's argument is broad in scope, it begins by establishing some perspective before focusing on the current case law of com- mercial speech.