‘Laissez-faire’ means ‘leave to do’; a more colloquial translation might be ‘let them get on with it’. Since the late eighteenth century such phrases as ‘a laissez-faire policy’ and ‘laissez-faire economics’ have suggested a belief in the virtues of allowing individuals to pursue their interests through market transactions with minimal government interference.
However, laissez-faire in a broad sense, as opposed to the use of the phrase in particular contexts with respect to particular sections of production, is vague and its historical location elusive. Laissez-faire economics is not normally based on libertarian ethics but rather on the utilitarian calculation that absence of interference functions better than interference. But nearly all market theories are also theories of market failure and it is difficult to identify any leading economic thinker who thought that laissez-faire was the best solution to all problems. Adam Smith, for example, did not believe that unregulated markets could provide the kind of educational system which a commercial society needed.
However, laissez-faire in a broad sense, as opposed to the use of the phrase in particular contexts with respect to particular sections of production, is vague and its historical location elusive. Laissez-faire economics is not normally based on libertarian ethics but rather on the utilitarian calculation that absence of interference functions better than interference. But nearly all market theories are also theories of market failure and it is difficult to identify any leading economic thinker who thought that laissez-faire was the best solution to all problems. Adam Smith, for example, did not believe that unregulated markets could provide the kind of educational system which a commercial society needed.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/laissez-faire#ixzz1CXgS1geC
No comments:
Post a Comment