Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire (/lsefr-/, French: [lsef]) is an economic system in which transactions between private
parties are free from government interference such as
regulations, privileges, taris, and subsidies. The phrase
laissez-faire is part of a larger French phrase and literally
translates to let (it/them) do, but in this context usually
means to let go.[1]

was Quesnay who coined the term laissez-faire, laissezpasser,[7][8] laissez-faire being a translation of the Chinese term
wu wei.[9] Gournay was an ardent proponent of the removal of restrictions on trade and the
deregulation of industry in France. Gournay was delighted by the Colbert-LeGendre anecdote,[10] and forged
it into a larger maxim all his own: "Laissez faire et laissez
passer" ('Let do and let pass). His motto has also been
identied as the longer "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le
monde va de lui mme!" (Let do and let pass, the world
1 Etymology
goes on by itself!"). Although Gournay left no written
tracts on his economic policy ideas, he had immense perLegend has it that the term originated in a meeting that
sonal inuence on his contemporaries, notably his fellow
took place around 1681 between powerful French nance
Physiocrats, who credit both the laissez-faire slogan and
minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French
the doctrine to Gournay.[11]
businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre. When the
eager mercantilist minister asked how the French state Before d'Argenson or Gournay, P.S. de Boisguilbert had
could be of service to the merchants and help promote enunciated the phrase on laisse faire la nature ('let na[12]
D'Argenson himself, during his
their commerce, Le Gendre replied simply "Laissez-nous ture run its course').
faire" (Leave it to us or Let us do ["it, the French verb life, was better known for the similar but less-celebrated
motto "Pas trop gouverner" (Govern not too much).[13]
not having to take an object]").[2]
But it was Gournays use of the 'laissez-faire' phrase (as
The anecdote on the ColbertLe Gendre meeting was repopularized by the Physiocrats) that gave it its cachet.
lated in a 1751 article in the Journal Oeconomique by
French minister and champion of free trade Ren de Laissez-faire was proclaimed by the Physiocrats in the
Voyer, Marquis d'Argensonalso the rst known ap- eighteenth-century France, thus being the very core of the
pearance of the term in print.[3] Argenson himself had economic principles, and was more developed by famous
[14]
It is with
used the phrase earlier (1736) in his own diaries, in a fa- economists, beginning with Adam Smith.
the
physiocrats
and
the
classical
political
economy
that
mous outburst:
the term laissez faire is ordinarily associated.[15] The
book Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State menLaissez faire, telle devrait tre la devise de
tions that, The physiocrats, reacting against the excestoute puissance publique, depuis que le monde
sive mercantilist regulations of the France of their day,
est civilis ... Dtestable principe que celui de
expressed a belief in a natural order or liberty under
ne vouloir grandir que par l'abaissement de nos
which individuals in following their selsh interests convoisins! Il n'y a que la mchancet et la matributed to the general good. Since, in their view, this natlignit du coeur de satisfaites dans ce principe,
ural order functioned successfully without the aid of govet lintrt y est oppos. Laissez faire, morbleu!
ernment, they advised the state to restrict itself to uphold[4]
Laissez faire!!
ing the rights of private property and individual liberty, to
("Leave it to itself has been the proper
removing all articial barriers to trade, and to abolishing
motto of public powers since the dawn of civilall useless laws.[14]
isation. Appalling is the principle of seeking
In England, a number of free trade and nonglory solely by debasing our neighbours! In
interference slogans had been coined already during
it are but the malice and spitefulness of heart
the 17th century. But the French phrase laissez faire
typical of fat cats; the public interest lies elsegained currency in English-speaking countries with the
where. Leave it to itself, for the love of God!
spread of Physiocratic literature in the late 18th century.
Leave it!")[5]
The Colbert-LeGendre anecdote was relayed in George
The laissez faire slogan was popularized by Vincent de Whatley's 1774 Principles of Trade (co-authored with
Gournay, a French Physiocrat and intendant of com- Benjamin Franklin) which may be the rst appearance
[16]
merce in the 1750s, who is said to have adopted the of the phrase in an English language publication.
term from Franois Quesnay's writings on China.[6] It
1

2
Laissez-faire, a product of the Enlightenment, was conceived as the way to unleash human potential through
the restoration of a natural system, a system unhindered
by the restrictions of government.[17] In a similar vein,
Adam Smith viewed the economy as a natural system and
the market as an organic part of that system. Smith saw
laissez-faire as a moral program, and the market its instrument to ensure men the rights of natural law.[17] By
extension, free markets become a reection of the natural
system of liberty.[17] For Smith, laissez-faire was a program for the abolition of laws constraining the market, a
program for the restoration of order and for the activation
of potential growth.[17]
However, Adam Smith,[18] and the notable classical
economists, such as Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo,
did not use the phrase. Jeremy Bentham used the term,
but it was probably James Mill's reference to the "laissezfaire" maxim (together with "pas trop gouverner") in an
1824 entry for the Encyclopdia Britannica that really
brought the term into wider English usage. With the advent of the Anti-Corn Law League, the term received
much of its (English) meaning.[19]

HISTORY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE DEBATE

laissez-faire proposed a Impt unique, a tax on land rent

to replace all taxes that damage welfare by penalizing
production.[24]

3 History of laissez-faire debate

3.1 China
During the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, Chinese scholar-ocials would often debate about the interference the government should have in the economy,
such as setting monopolies in lucrative industries and instating price controls. Such debates were often heated
with Confucian factions tending to oppose extensive government controls and Reform factions favoring such
moves. During the Han and Tang, emperors sometimes
instated government monopolies in times of war, and
abolished them later when the scal crisis had passed.
Eventually, in the later Song and Ming dynasties, state
monopolies were abolished in every industry and were
never reinstated during the length of that dynasty, with
the government following laissez-faire policies. During
the Manchu Qing Dynasty, state monopolies were reinstated, and the government interfered heavily in the economy; many scholars believe this prevented China from
developing capitalism.[25]

Adam Smith rst used the metaphor of an "invisible

hand" in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
to describe the unintentional eects of economic selforganization from economic self-interest.[20] The idea lying behind the invisible hand, though not the metaphor
itself, belongs to Bernard de Mandeville and his Fable
of the Bees. In political economy, that idea and the doctrine of laissez-faire have always been closely related.[21] 3.2 Europe
Some have characterized the invisible hand metaphor as
one for laissez-faire,[22] though Smith never actually used In Europe, the laissez-faire movement was rst widely
the term himself.[18]
promoted by the physiocrats, a movement that originated with Vincent de Gournay, a successful merchant.
Gournay adopted the concept, which is the translation of
2 Fundamentals
Chinese philosophy wu wei,[26] from Franois Quesnay's
writings on China.[9] Gournay held that the government
Being a system of thought, laissez-faire rests on the fol- should allow the laws of nature to govern economic activity, with the state only intervening to protect life, liberty,
lowing axioms:[17]
and property. His ideas were taken up by Franois Quesnay and Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne. Quesnay had the ear
1. The individual is the basic unit in society.
of the King of France, Louis XV, and in 1754 persuaded
2. The individual has a natural right to freedom.
him to give laissez-faire a try. On September 17, the King
abolished all tolls and restraints on the sale and transport
3. The physical order of nature is a harmonious and of grain, and for more than a decade the experiment was a
self-regulating system.
success. But then, in 1768, there was a poor harvest, and
4. Corporations are creatures of the State and there- the cost of bread rose so high that there was widespread
fore must be watched closely by the citizenry due to starvation, while merchants exported grain in order to obtheir propensity to disrupt the Smithian spontaneous tain the best prot. In 1770, the edict allowing free trade
was revoked.[27]
order.[23]
These axioms constitute the basic elements of
laissez-faire thought, although another basic and
often-disregarded element is that markets should be
competitive, a rule that the early advocates of laissezfaire have always emphasized.[17] To maximize freedom
and allow markets to self-regulate, early advocates of

The doctrine of laissez-faire became an integral part of

nineteenth-century European liberalism.[14] Just as liberals supported freedom of thought in the intellectual
sphere, so were they equally prepared to champion the
principles of free trade and free competition in the sphere
of economics. The state was to be merely a passive policeman, protecting private property and administering

3.3

United States

justice, but not interfering with the aairs of its citizens.

Businessmen, and particularly British industrialists, were
quick to associate these principles with their own economic interests.[14] Many of the ideas of the physiocrats
spread throughout Europe, and were adopted to a greater
or lesser extent in Sweden, Tuscany, Spain, and after
1776 in the newly created United States. Adam Smith,
author of The Wealth of Nations, met Quesnay and acknowledged his inuence.[28]
In Britain, in 1843, the newspaper The Economist was
founded and became an inuential voice for laissezfaire capitalism.[29] Laissez-faire advocates opposed food
aid for famines occurring within the British Empire; in
1847, referring to the famine then underway in Ireland,
founder of The Economist James Wilson wrote, It is no
mans business to provide for another.[30] However, The
Economist campaigned against the Corn Laws that protected landlords in the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports of cereal products. The Great Famine in Ireland in 1845 led to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.
The taris on grain which kept the price of bread articially high were repealed.[31] However, repeal of the Corn
Laws came too late to stop Irish famine, partly because it
was done in stages over three years.[32]
A group calling itself the Manchester Liberals, to which
Richard Cobden and Richard Wright belonged, were
staunch defenders of free trade, and their work was carried on, after the death of Richard Cobden in 1866,
by The Cobden Club.[33] In 1860, a trade treaty was
signed between Britain and France, after which several
of these treaties were signed among other European countries. The breakdown of the laissez-faire practised by the
British Empire was partly led by British companies eager
for state support of their positions abroad, in particular
British oil companies.[34]

3.3

United States

Frank Bourgins dissertation on the Constitutional Convention and subsequent decades argues that direct government involvement in the economy was intended by
the Founders.[35] The reason for this was the economic
and nancial chaos the nation suered under the Articles
of Confederation. The goal was to ensure that dearlywon political independence was not lost by being economically and nancially dependent on the powers and
princes of Europe. The creation of a strong central government able to promote science, invention, industry and
commerce was seen as an essential means of promoting the general welfare and making the economy of the
United States strong enough for them to determine their
own destiny. One later result of this intent was the adoption of Richard Faringthons new plan (worked out with
his co-worker John Jeerson) to incorporate new changes
during the New Deal. Others, including Jeerson, view
Bourgins study, written in the 1940s and not published

3
until 1989, as an over-interpretation of the evidence, intended originally to defend the New Deal and later to
counter Reagan's economic policies.[36]
Notable examples of government intervention in the period prior to the Civil War include the establishment of
the Patent Oce in 1802; the establishment of the Oce
of Standard Weights and Measures in 1830; the creation
of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1807 and other measures to improve river and harbor navigation; the various
Army expeditions to the west, beginning with Lewis and
Clark's Corps of Discovery in 1804 and continuing into
the 1870s, almost always under the direction of an ocer
from the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, and
which provided crucial information for the overland pioneers that followed; the assignment of Army Engineer
ocers to assist or direct the surveying and construction of the early railroads and canals; the establishment
of the First Bank of the United States and Second Bank
of the United States as well as various protectionist measures (e.g., the tari of 1828). Several of these proposals
met with serious opposition, and required a great deal of
horse-trading to be enacted into law. For instance, the
First National Bank would not have reached the desk of
President George Washington in the absence of an agreement that was reached between Alexander Hamilton and
several southern members of Congress to locate the capitol in the District of Columbia. In contrast to Hamilton
and the Federalists was Jeerson and Madisons opposing
political party, the Democratic-Republicans.
Most of the early opponents of laissez-faire capitalism
in the US subscribed to the American School. This
school of thought was inspired by the ideas of Alexander
Hamilton, who proposed the creation of a governmentsponsored bank and increased taris to favor northern industrial interests. Following Hamiltons death, the more
abiding protectionist inuence in the antebellum period
came from Henry Clay and his American System.
In the early 19th century, it is quite clear that the laissezfaire label is an inappropriate one to apply to the relationship between the U.S. government and industry.[37]
In the mid-19th century, the United States followed the
Whig tradition of economic nationalism, which included
increased state control, regulation, and macroeconomic
development of infrastructure.[38] Public works such as
the provision and regulation transportation such as railroads took eect. The Pacic Railway Acts provided the
development of the First Transcontinental Railroad.[38]
In order to help pay for its war eort in the American
Civil War, the United States government imposed its rst
personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the
Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800;
rescinded in 1872).
Following the Civil War, the movement towards a mixed
economy accelerated. Protectionism increased with the
McKinley Tari of 1890 and the Dingley Tari of 1897.
Government regulation of the economy expanded with

REFERENCES

the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 policies which contribute to the growth of in the wealth
and the Sherman Anti-trust Act.
of nations. Unfortunately, they often are not in favour of
indolentThe Progressive Era saw the enactment of more controls these pro-growth policies, because of their own[42]
induced
ignorance
and
intellectual
abbiness.
on the economy, as evidenced by the Wilson Administrations New Freedom program.

The British economist John Maynard Keynes condemned

laissez-faire economic policy on several occasions.[43] In
The End of Laissez-faire (1926), one of the most famous of his critiques, Keynes argues that the doctrines of
laissez-faire are dependent to some extent on improper
deductive reasoning, and, Keynes says, the question of
whether a market solution or state intervention is better
must be determined on a case-by-case basis.[44]

Following World War I and the Great Depression, the

United States turned to a mixed economy, which combined free enterprise with a progressive income tax, and
in which, from time to time, the government stepped in to
support and protect American industry from competition
from overseas. For example, in the 1980s, the government sought to protect the automobile industry by voluntary export restrictions from Japan.[39] Pietro S. Nivola Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek stated that a freely
wrote in 1986:
competitive, laissez-faire banking industry tends to be endogenously destabilizing and pro-cyclical. He stated that
the need for central banking control was inescapable.[45]
By and large, the comparative strength of
the dollar against major foreign currencies has
reected high U.S. interest rates driven by huge
federal budget decits. Hence, the source of
much of the current deterioration of trade is
not the general state of the economy, but rather
the governments mix of scal and monetary
policies that is, the problematic juxtaposition
of bold tax reductions, relatively tight monetary targets, generous military outlays, and
only modest cuts in major entitlement programs. Put simply, the roots of the trade problem and of the resurgent protectionism it has
fomented are fundamentally political as well as
economic.[40]

5 See also
Economic liberalism
Anarcho-capitalism
Free-market anarchism
History of economic thought
Libertarianism
Market fundamentalism
Neoliberalism

A more recent advocate of total laissez-faire has been

objectivist Ayn Rand, who described it as the abolition
of any and all forms of government intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics,
in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.[41]

6 References
[1] Laissez-faire, Business Dictionary
[2] Journal Oeconomique 1751, Article by the French minister of nance.

Critiques

Over the years, a number of economists have oered critiques of laissez-faire economics.
Adam Smith acknowledged deep moral ambiguities towards the system of capitalism.[42] Smith had severe
misgivings concerning some aspects of each of the major character-types produced by modern capitalist society: the landlords, the workers, and the capitalists.[42]
The landlords role in the economic process is passive.
Their ability to reap a revenue solely from ownership of
land tends to make them indolent and inept, and so they
tend to be unable to even look after their own economic
interests.[42] The increase in population should increase
the demand for food, which should increase rents, which
should be economically benecial to the landlords. Thus,
according to Smith, the landlords should be in favour of

[3] M. d'Argenson, Lettre au sujet de la dissertation sur le

commerce du marquis de Belloni', Avril 1751, Journal
Oeconomique p. 111. See A. Oncken, Die Maxime Laissez
faire et laissez passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden, 1866
[4] as quoted in J. M. Keynes, 1926, The End of Laissez
Faire. Argensons Mmoirs were published only in 1858,
ed. Jannet, Tome V, p. 362. See A. Oncken (Die Maxime
Laissez faire et laissez passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden,
1866)
[5] Original translation
[6] Baghdiantz McCabe, Ina (2008). Orientalism in Early
Modern France: Eurasian Trade Exoticism and the Ancien
Regime. Berg Publishers. pp. 271272. ISBN 978-184520-374-0.
[7] Library of Economics and Liberty. Liberty Fund, Inc.
Retrieved 22 September 2013.

[8] Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

[9] Clarke, J.J. (1997). Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. Routledge.
p. 50. ISBN 978-0415133760.
[10] According to J. Turgot's Eloge de Vincent de Gournay,
Mercure, August, 1759 (repr. in Oeuvres of Turgot, vol. 1
p. 288.
[11] Gournay was credited with the phrase by Jacques Turgot (Eloge a Gournay, Mercure 1759), the Marquis de
Mirabeau (Philosophie rurale 1763 and Ephmrides du
Citoyen, 1767.), the Comte d'Albon (,"loge Historique
de M. Quesnay, Nouvelles Ephmrides conomiques,
May, 1775, pp. 13637. ) and DuPont de Nemours (Introduction to Oeuvres de Jacques Turgot, 180811, Vol. I,
pp. 257, 259 (Daire ed.)) among others
[12] Tant, encore une fois, qu'on laisse faire la nature, on ne
doit rien craindre de pareil, P.S. de Boisguilbert, 1707,
Dissertation de la nature des richesses, de l'argent et des
tributs.
[13] DuPont de Nemours, op cit, p .258. Oncken (op.cit) and
Keynes (op.cit.) also credit the Marquis d'Argenson with
the phrase "Pour gouverner mieux, il faudrait gouverner
moins" (To govern best, one needs to govern less), possibly the source of the famous That government is best
which governs least motto popular in American circles,
attributed variously to Thomas Paine, Thomas Jeerson
and Henry Thoreau.
[14] Fine, Sidney. Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State.
United States: The University of Michigan Press, 1964.
Print
[15] Macgregor, Economic Thought and Policy (London,
1949), pp. 5467
[16] Whatleys Principles of Trade are reprinted in Works of
Benjamin Franklin, Vol.2, p. 401
[17] Gaspard, Touck. A Political Economy of Lebanon 1948
2002: The Limits of Laissez-faire. Boston: Brill, 2004.
ISBN 978-9004132597
[18] Roy C. Smith, Adam Smith and the Origins of American
Enterprise: How the Founding Fathers Turned to a Great
Economists Writings and Created the American Economy, Macmillan, 2004, ISBN 0-312-32576-2, pp. 1314.

[23] Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all
those laws which restrain, in particular employments,
the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the same tendency, though in
a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies, and may frequently, for ages together, and in whole
classes of employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities above the natural price, and maintain both the wages of the labour and the prots of the
stock employed about them somewhat above their natural
rate. p. 52, http://www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/SmithA_
WealthNations_p.pdf
[24] Ganey, Mason. The Taxable Surplus of Land: Measuring, Guarding and Gathering It. Retrieved 9 December
2014.
[25] Li Bo and Zheng Yin, 5000 years of Chinese History, Inner
Mongolian Peoples publishing corp , ISBN 7-204-044207, 1017
[26] Christian Gerlach, Wu-Wei in Europe. A Study of
Eurasian Economic Thought, London School of Economics March 2005 p. 3 the diusion of wu-wei, coevolved with the inner-European laissez-faire principle,
the Libaniusian model. p. 8 Thus, wu-wei has to be recognized as a laissez-faire instrument of Chinese political
economy p. 10 Practising wu-wei erzhi. Consequently,
it is this variant of the laissez-faire maxim in which the
basis of Physiocracys moral philosophy is to be located.
Priddats work made clear that the wu-wei of the complete
conomie has to be considered central to Physiocracy; p.
11 that wu-wei translates into French as laissez-faire
[27] Will & Ariel Durant, Rousseau and the Revolution, pp.
7177, Simon and Schuster, 1967, ISBN 067163058X.
[28] Will & Ariel Durant, Rousseau and the Revolution, p. 76,
Simon and Schuster, 1967, ISBN 067163058X.
[29] Scott Gordon (1955). The London Economist and the
High Tide of Laissez Faire. Journal of Political Economy.
63 (6): 46188. doi:10.1086/257722.
[30] Cormac Grda (1995). section: Ideology and relief in
Chpt. 2. The Great Irish Famine. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9780521557870.
[31] George Miller. On Fairness and Eciency. The Policy
Press, 2000. ISBN 978-1-86134-221-8 p. 344

[19] Abbott P. Usher; et al. (1931). Economic History The

Decline of Laissez Faire. American Economic Review.
22 (1, Supplement): 310.

[32] Christine Kinealy. A Death-Dealing Famine:The Great

Hunger in Ireland. Pluto Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-74531074-9. p. 59

[20] Andres Marroquin, Invisible Hand: The Wealth of Adam

Smith, The Minerva Group, Inc., 2002, ISBN 1-41020288-7, p. 123.

[33] Antonia Taddei (1999). London Clubs in the Late Nineteenth Century (PDF). Retrieved 2008-12-30.

[21] John Eatwell, The Invisible Hand,

ton&Company, 1989, pp. Preface x1.

W.W. Nor-

[22] The mathematical century: the 30 greatest problems of

the last 100 years (2006) Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Arturo
Sangalli, Freeman J Dyson, p. 122. Google.com. Retrieved 2013-07-30.

[34] Jones, G. Gareth (1977). The British Government

and the Oil Companies 19121924: The Search for an
Oil Policy. The Historical Journal. 20 (3): 64772.
doi:10.1017/s0018246x00011286. JSTOR 2638433.
[35] Bourgin, Frank (1989). The Great Challenge: The Myth
of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic. New York, NY:
George Braziller Inc. ISBN 0-06-097296-3.

8 FURTHER READING

[36] Bourgin, Frank (1989-06-01). THE GREAT CHALLENGE: The Myth of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic by Frank Bourgin | Kirkus. Kirkusreviews.com. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
[37] Prince, Carl E.; Taylor, Seth (1982). Daniel Webster, the
Boston Associates, and the U.S. Governments Role in the
Industrializing Process, 18151830. Journal of the Early
Republic. 2 (3): 28399. doi:10.2307/3122975. JSTOR
3122975.
[38] Guelzo, Allen C. (1999). Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer
President. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.
Co. ISBN 0-8028-3872-3.
[39] Robert W. Crandall (1987). The Eects of U.S.
Trade Protection for Autos and Steel. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Vol. 1987, No. 1. 1987 (1): 27188.
doi:10.2307/2534518. JSTOR 2534518.
[40] Pietro S. Nivola (1986). The New Protectionism: U.S.
Trade Policy in Historical Perspective. Political Science
Quarterly. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No.
4. 101 (4): 577600. doi:10.2307/2150795. JSTOR
2150795.
[41] Rand, Ayn Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ch. 7, New
American Library, Signet, 1967.
[42] Spencer J. Pack. Capitalism as a Moral System: Adam
Smiths Critique of the Free Market Economy. Great
Britain: Edward Elgar, 2010. Print
[43] Dostaler, Gilles, Keynes and His Battles (Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2007), p. 91.
[44] Dostaler 2007, p. 91; Barnett, Vincent, John Maynard
Keynes (Routledge, 2013), p. 143.
[45] White, Lawrence H. (1999). Why Didn't Hayek Favor
Laissez Faire in Banking?" (PDF). History of Political
Economy. 31 (4): 753769. doi:10.1215/00182702-314-753. Retrieved 11 April 2013.

Bibliography
Brebner, John Bartlet (1948). Laissez Faire and
State Intervention in Nineteenth-Century Britain.
Journal of Economic History. 8: 5973.
Fisher, Irving (January 1907). Why has the Doctrine of Laissez Faire been Abandoned?". Science.
25 (627): 1827. doi:10.1126/science.25.627.18.
PMID 17739703.
Taussig, Frank W. (1904). The Present Position
of the Doctrine of Free Trade. Publications of the
American Economic Association. 6 (1): 2965.

8 Further reading
Block, Fred; Somers, Margaret R. (2014). The
Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polyanis
Critique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05071-6.
Bourgin, Frank The Great Challenge: The Myth of
Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic (George Braziller
Inc., 1989; Harper & Row, 1990)
Wu-Wei in Europe. A Study of Eurasian Economic
Thought PDF (773 KB) by Christian Gerlach, London School of Economics March 2005
John Maynard Keynes, The end of laissez-faire
(1926)
Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 18001890 (Greenwood
Press, 1960)
Goodrich, Carter. American Development
Policy: the Case of Internal Improvements,
Journal of Economic History, 16 (1956), 449
60. in JSTOR
Goodrich, Carter. National Planning of Internal Improvements, Political Science Quarterly, 63 (1948), 1644. in JSTOR
Johnson, E.A.J., The Foundations of American Economic Freedom: Government and Enterprise in the
Age of Washington (University of Minnesota Press,
1973)
Sidney Webb (1889). Fabian Essays in Socialism
The Basis of Socialism The Period of Anarchy. Library of Economics and Liberty. Women
working half naked in the coal mines; young children dragging trucks all day in the foul atmosphere
of the underground galleries; infants bound to the
loom for fteen hours in the heated air of the cotton
mill, and kept awake only by the overlookers lash;
hours of labor for all, young and old, limited only by
the utmost capabilities of physical endurance; complete absence of the sanitary provisions necessary to
a rapidly growing population: these and other nameless iniquities will be found recorded as the results
of freedom of contract and complete laissez faire in
the impartial pages of successive blue-book reports.

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Laissez-faire Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire?oldid=737496715 Contributors: Slrubenstein, Heron, Olivier, Stevertigo, Ubiquity, PhilipMW, Brtkrbzhnv, Vera Cruz, Lousyd, Wapcaplet, Sannse, Minesweeper, Ahoerstemeier, Susurrus, Evercat,
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9.2

Images

File:Economic_template.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Economic_template.svg License: CC BYSA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Rino ap Codkelden
File:En-us-laissez-faire.ogg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/En-us-laissez-faire.ogg License: CC BYSA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Davumaya
File:Sound-icon.svg Source:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Sound-icon.svg License:

LGPL Contributors:

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Derivative work from Silsor's versio Original artist: Crystal SVG icon set
File:Speaker_Icon.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Speaker_Icon.svg License: Public domain Contributors: No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). Original artist: No machine-readable
author provided. Mobius assumed (based on copyright claims).

9.3

Content license

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