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Laissez-Faire
(redirected from Laissez-faire capitalism)

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
laissez-faire
Of, relating to, or being an economy devoid of government interference.

Laissez-Faire
A term describing an economic theory that promotes government non-intervention. Laissez-faire theory states that most government interventions make an economy less efficient and hamper growth. According to this, government ought to restrict itself to safeguarding the right to private property. In its extreme form, it is opposed to any law limiting economic activities short of theft or extortion. Laissez-faire economists are philosophically opposed to minimum wages, protectionism, antitrust laws, and most laws intended to benefit workers at the expense of employers. Proponents of laissez-faire economics argue that it benefits employers and workers alike. For example, a man may open a mechanic shop to make money for himself, but, in the process of doing so, he may hire otherwise unemployed mechanics and service otherwise broken cars, which then facilitates business for the rest of the community. If there were environmental or wage restrictions on his business, however, he might not hire as many employees and may not start the mechanic shop at all. Critics of the theory contend that its benefits are overstated and that a laissez-faire structure without regulation lends itself to the creation of bubbles, which harms both businesses and their employees. See also: Reaganomics, Invisible Hand, Keynesian economics, Marxism, Regulation.


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As a result, the average American leaves school generally believing that laissez-faire capitalism needs to be restrained and that a benevolent government is working to ensure that consumers, taxpayers, and small entrepreneurs are not being exploited by Big Business.
These as the acceptance of laissez-faire capitalism as not just a neutral, value-free economic system, but one that is morally good, and a lens that views social problems as mere extensions of personal problems that are moral or spiritual in nature.
And while Sinasac takes pains to suggest that his protagonist was no socialist in Catholic clothing, he paints Somerville as a constant critic of laissez-faire capitalism, and its tendency to stifle social reformers with a radical-atheist tag.
 
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