Talk:Laissez-faire

Malleus Fatuorum edit

Good work, Malleus Fatuorum. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Adam Smith

I undid the recent revision by 99.35.128.126, which stated as follows: "In fact Smith argued for progressive taxation and against unregulated markets and unfettered business interests. [cites Gopnik, A]"

That is not an elucidating observation, nor a correct one.

• Mr. Gopnik does not say what our illustrious editor insists he said.

• Laissez-faire does not imply or prescribe any particular system of taxation. It only requires that it not be distortionary of the price signalling mechanism. Progressive, proportional, non-existent and numerous other schemes, are all consistent with laissez-faire.

• Smith's entire Wealth of Nations was an evaluation & condemnation of distortionary market regulations as they existed in the 18th C. Britain. Smith concludes Book IV with an outline of the system he'd like to see instead. Rather than quarrel with the editor (or Mr. Gopnik), I'll quote Adam Smith himself:

"All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society. According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society."

Ch.9, Of the Agricultural Systems, or of those Systems of Political Oeconomy, which Represent the Produce of Land | Bk IV, Ch. 9, para 54

That may not mean what everybody understands "unregulated markets" to mean (what does the editor mean?), but it's about as close to it as it gets. Certainly, a sufficiently decent summary of how laissez faire system is supposed to look like.

• Finally, Adam Smith was instrumental in introduction of liberalizing reforms in the late 18th & 19th C. His arguments were appealed to constantly by proponents of laissez faire system. So even if some 21st C. commentator, by resorting to careful editing of a quote here and there out of context, believes he can prove Adam Smith "really meant" something else, it does not really make a difference to the history of laissez faire since everybody, from 1776 on down, thought Adam Smith precisely meant laissez faire. Walrasiad (talk) 09:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

American Whiggery

In the mid-19th century, the United States followed the Whig tradition of economic liberalism, which included increased state control, regulation and macroeconomic development of infrastructure.

Was such illiberal policy (see the link) already called 'liberalism' in those days?? —Tamfang (talk) 01:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It appears to be synthesis - no page no. is given but here is a link to the source. TFD (talk) 02:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

NPoV

[laissez-faire] describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies.

The word restrictive here is deliberately suggestive. This part of the article is obviously written from the perspective of a laissez-faire apologist. "Free from state intervention" implies zero regulation - not merely zero restrictive regulation. What does restrictive even mean? Ourben (talk) 03:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

'Free from state intervention' =/= zero regulations. Laissez faire theorists are adamant about the need for, say, State involvement in the protection of property, guarantee of contract, information requirements and transperancy rules (to prevent fraud) and even many are quite active proponents of State intervention to prevent "distraint of trade" (anti-trust regulation), cf. Henry C. Simons 1948, A Positive Program for Laissez Faire. I suppose a better word could be found for "restrictive", but essentially laissez faire theorists promote the minimum regulation necessary to guarantee free competitive exchange, but anything beyond that is considered "restrictive". As for "enforced monopolies" this is a reference to two things - old style commercial charter companies (East India Co. & all that, the bane of Adam Smith, Turgot et al.) and 20th C. government-sanctioned monopolies like nationalized companies, parastatals, public utilities, etc. Some theorists would include copyright and patent protection under this. I don't see either as apologetics, but clarifiers. Walrasiad (talk) 05:25, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Some laissez-faire theorists are adamant about the need for state oversight; some are anarchists. A better way to say what you mean is that advocacy of some kinds of state intervention do not disqualify the "laissez-faire" label. —Tamfang (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Although I presume the wording was going for the minimum necessary to qualify for the label. Walrasiad (talk) 19:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Outdated audio

The english pronunciation audio file is outdated. There is a speech after the actual pronunciation of laissez-faire that doesn't match this article. The current audio file was added in this revision: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laissez-faire&oldid=221090198 Apparently the speech matches with the first paragraph of that article from 2008, except from the last seconds of the recording which appear to be an original summary of laissez-faire politics.146.247.222.49 (talk) 22:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)