Talk is cheap and it drives out talk that is less cheap - Frank Knight

“Frank Knight, a professor at Chicago University from 1922-1972, was considered one of the founders of the Chicago School of economics. This was not a "school" with a building and a staff. It was, rather, a "school of thought" that generally viewed capitalism as the best of all possible systems in dealing with the human condition as applied to the distribution of goods and services within a society. Frank Knight considered this regrettable, but true. In an age when socialism was all the rage, he understood that socialism was inefficient and incapable of supporting growth, expansion and scientific advancement.” (1)

Dr. Knight's First Law of Talk: "Talk is cheap and it drives out talk that is less cheap."

Frank Knight was an economics professor of both Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan. Both Friedman and Buchanan are Nobel Prize winners in economics.

“Frank Knight humorously hypothesized that this idea about bad and good money could be applied to communication. "Cheap talk" was easily manufactured and it tends to drive out more reasoned talk because the response to cheap talk is more generally even cheaper talk that is yet more inflated. This law can easily be seen in action in the realm of politics and diplomacy. It also applies to academic arguments that generate a certain amount of vitriol.” (2)

Notes:

(1) Frank Knight's First Law of Talk

http://www.indepthinfo.com/articles/law-of-talk.shtml

(2) Ibid