A new paper researched by three prominent academics says the rich might value free speech in theory but the poor need it in practice

A new article says low income people benefit most from free speech, even if they don't realise it.

It argues that low income people need the right to say what they think, or to organise protests, because that is often the only means available for them to get their message across.

But prosperous, well connected people often have access to influential leaders and can quietly make their opinions known no matter what the law says.

The article goes on to contrast the reality of free speech with publicly held positions on it.  

It says that poor people often see free speech as a luxury, while rich people often proclaim strong support for it. But the underlying reality is that poor people need it more than rich people do.

These issues have been described in an article in the USA-based international publication, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. It was written by the Wellington lawyer and economist Diana Voerman-Tam, the academic and former Reserve Bank economist and chairman, Arthur Grimes, and a researcher with the research institute Motu, Nicholas Watson.

To reach their conclusions, the team analysed existing empirical research, covering 300,000 individuals over a 40-year period.

One study they relied on was the so-called Latino Barometer, which was a cross-sectional survey of people from 17 countries who were interviewed 18 times over 23 years.

Another source was the World Values Survey, which did a similar thing seven times in 36 years across 90 countries.

There was also country-level information on free speech and human rights compiled on two separate data bases.

The findings of the research put a new slant on famous statements such as that by the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahator Mohammed: “You must eat before you can vote. ”

The article says free speech is not necessarily a luxury good for poor people even if they sometimes think it is.

“While it is not their top priority when making ends meet, they gain greater benefit from having free speech than more prosperous groups do,” the team writes.

“We conclude that even though survey evidence for stated preferences indicates that free speech is a luxury good, regimes which increase freedom of speech (on average) simultaneously raise the subjective wellbeing of more marginalised members of society relative to those with greater resources.”

Arthur Grimes says free speech enables lower income people to express their views through ordinary conversations, writing letters, going to their union boss, or organising protests, which they could not do if free speech were restricted.

The report stresses subjective wellbeing rather than objective economic progress. There have been many suggestions that democracy is good for the economy because it empowers people at all levels of society to come up with entrepreneurial ideas which were previously reserved for the upper class. Similar arguments have been proposed for the empowerment of women since it frees up half the population to make economic progress.

But Grimes says economic results are not the main thrust of the research.

"There is not a lot of evidence that free speech and human rights have a huge effect on economic performance,” Grimes says.

“Economic freedoms such as reduced regulations tend to have quite a major impact on growth and the level of incomes in an economy, but there is much less evidence that free speech itself has economic outcomes.”

He concedes that free speech might allow someone to express a bright new idea that helps an economy, but equally, it might not.

“But there is an intrinsic benefit to having free speech that might lead to having benefits that people otherwise would not have to improve the quality of their lives.”

The article by Grimes and his team has been published at a time when debate is rumbling on about hate speech. Legislation to curb this problem appears to have stalled, due to worries about definitions and workability.

Grimes suggests there is an issue to be faced up to here.

“Even countries with the greatest levels of free speech still have curbs on some forms of hate speech, or speech advocating treason or terrorism, so there are always going to be some curbs even in an almost entirely free-speech country.

“I think what this evidence suggests is that we should err on the side of caution before we start restricting things. It is better to be open than to go the other way and say, let's restrict this just in case.

“So I would be on the side of those who say let's be very careful and very cautious before we start introducing new restrictions.”

Grimes goes on to make another point. He says legal theorists often say that for every right there is a corresponding duty.

“The way I look at it is that if there is a right to free speech there is a duty on all of us to listen, and that involves listening to alternative views.

“If you think about the importance of a cohesive society, it is not just that we should have free speech, but that at an individual level, we should also listen to what others are saying.”

Grimes says this is increasingly not happening. He says people are often unwilling to tolerate other people's ideas, and are even shutting them down via so called “cancel culture.”

“I think people should expose themselves to to other views, I think that is really important,” Grimes says.

“Free speech should go along with free listening.”