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Laissez-faire (/ ˌ l ɛ s eɪ ˈ f ɛər / LESS-ay-FAIR, from French: laissez faire [lɛse fɛːʁ] ⓘ, lit. ' let do ' ) is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations ).
The system works best when there is a complementary relationship between one person's needs and another person's desires, and so trade restrictions place an unnatural barrier to achieving one's goals. Laissez-faire was popularized by physiocrat Vincent de Gournay who is said to have adopted the term from François Quesnay's writings on China. [10]
In 1991, he became director of its Free Enterprise Institute. In 1993, his book Free Banking: Theory, History, and a Laissez-Faire Model was published by Quorum Books. He became a full professor in 2002. Sechrest was a libertarian and promoted the ideas of the Austrian School of economics.
Laissez-faire, or free market capitalism, is an ideology that prescribes minimal public enterprise and government regulation in a capitalist economy. [51] This ideology advocates for a type of capitalism based on open competition to determine the price , production and consumption of goods through the invisible hand of supply and demand ...
A rigid belief in laissez-faire guided the government response in 1846–1849 to the Great Famine in Ireland, during which an estimated 1.5 million people died. The minister responsible for economic and financial affairs, Charles Wood , expected that private enterprise and free trade, rather than government intervention, would alleviate the ...
Freedom to contract underpins laissez-faire economics and is a cornerstone of free-market libertarianism. The proponents of the concept believe that through "freedom of contract", individuals possess a general freedom to choose with whom to contract, whether to contract or not, and on which terms to contract.
The theoretical alternative to Keynesianism was more compatible with laissez-faire and emphasised individual rights and absence of government intervention. Market-oriented solutions gained increasing support in the Western world, especially under the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the UK in the 1980s.
Similarly disenchanted with regulation on trade inspired by mercantilism, the Frenchman Vincent de Gournay (1712–1759) reputedly asked why it was so hard to laissez faire ("let it be"), laissez passer ("let it pass"), advocating free enterprise and free trade. He was one of the early physiocrats, who regarded agriculture as the source of wealth.