Positive Liberty, Negative Liberty, and Marketing Regulations: A Holistic Analysis

Abstract

Marketing regulations are warranted when unfettered marketing practices compromise many people's positive and negative liberties. We elucidate these liberties’ multifaceted but interdependent connotations for societally justified marketing regulations from a novel framework integrating the social sciences, philosophy, history, and marketing. The limitations of unbalanced or less represented market or government regulation notwithstanding, overcoming marketing imbalances and enhancing personal and societal liberties via pluralistic, well-designed, enforceable, and multilateral regulations can advance a pluralistic democracy's diverse market-related interests. By informing companies and consumers about societally responsible liberties, well-regulated marketing can spur common goods creation.