Coffee Houses and the Free Market of Ideas

While there’s a far greater amount of information accessible to all, there has rarely been a society where different types of people are able to have less discourse with one another. The ability for various groups to advocate for their beliefs in a hostile environment is greatly diminished by the fragmentation allowed by the Internet and regulatory barriers. Neighborhood divisions, and other forms of class segregation have made the working class or non-expert rich people far outside of where important ideas are discussed. Those who innovate in certain industries have almost no incentive to explain their work to anyone outside of their industry. However, in the 16th and 17th century, coffee houses in Britain forced discourse between academics, business people, and the everyman. Everything was challenged, and new ideas were generated from the cross germination of different kinds of ideas. The university was complemented well by the coffee houses’ rough and tumble form of academic pursuit. The radically free exchange of ideas allowed for society and business innovation that could have never been created within the confines of a university.

Shortly after they emerged in Britain, coffee houses became a central nexus for the exchange of ideas. Rather than the pubs of the time that incentivized drunkenness and merrymaking, coffee houses allowed for sharp-witted conversation and debate. At first they catered to the elites in Oxford, but once they moved to London they became a free for all that brought nobles head to head with merchants and the poor. Leading academics would have to explain and justify their work to people with a life of strictly practical experience. Their contentious yet civil discussions allowed truth to overcome poor thinking. Commoners developed a forward thinking vision of the world from academics, and academics were able to ground their research in critiques from normal people. Citizens were able to form plans together so powerfully that until protestation brought it to an end, King Charles the second briefly banned London coffee houses. The meeting of so many different types of people even created financial markets as we know them today. Stock traders met in these coffee shops and even Lloyd’s of London and several other financial firms had their start in coffee houses. The rapid economic growth of England during this time was not a necessary result of some enlightenment mindset, but rather arose from the free exchange of information between experts and those who knew the practical layout of the everyday world. The cutting edge of research was able to actually be put to effective use in a way that has not been possible and almost any other time.…