On Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that while armed naxalism had largely been defeated, a different danger remained. He cautioned agains “dimagi naxals” – those who, he suggested, carry naxalite thinking in their minds. He said that they needed to be identified and isolated.

The political debate that followed has understandably focused on what exactly Modi meant and whom the phrase was intended to describe. But there is a more fundamental question worth asking: what happens when the state begins to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate ideas?

This is not simply a question about freedom of speech. It is also a question about competition, information and the possibility of institutional error.

Richard Posner, in Economic Analysis of Law, offers an unexpectedly useful way of thinking about this. In his discussion of the protection of free markets in ideas and religion, he approaches freedom of expression through an economic intuition: ideas, like goods, benefit from competition. The state should therefore be cautious about intervening in the marketplace in which ideas compete. The analogy deserves to be taken seriously.

#WATCH | Delhi: From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, "For years, individuals with a Maoist mindset had entrenched themselves within the corridors of power in the country. This Maoist ideology influenced policies, even through their roles as… pic.twitter.com/1vqeavpj0U— ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2026

#WATCH | Delhi: From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, "For years, individuals with a Maoist mindset had entrenched themselves within the corridors of power in the country. This Maoist ideology influenced policies, even through their roles as… pic.twitter.com/1vqeavpj0U

Economists generally distrust monopolies because a monopolist has little incentive to respond to consumers, improve its product or correct its mistakes. Competition forces producers to respond to information dispersed throughout society. No single producer knows everything. Markets aggregate information through the choices and judgments of millions of individuals.

There is something similar about a marketplace of ideas.

No government, however capable, possesses a monopoly on truth. If citizens are permitted to put competing ideas into circulation, those ideas can be challenged, tested, criticised, refined and sometimes discarded. The process will inevitably be messy. Some ideas will be foolish, others offensive and some potentially dangerous.

But the alternative is to give an institution – usually the state – the authority to determine in advance which ideas are sufficiently legitimate to enter the marketplace.

From an economic perspective, that should make us uncomfortable. The problem is not merely that a government might suppress a good idea. The deeper problem is that it might simply get the classification wrong.

Economics begins with the recognition that information is imperfect. Policymakers do not know everything about consumer preferences, technological developments or future economic conditions. The same........

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