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Article: The End of Laissez Faire.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 13, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CONSIDER the following. The most significant event of the post-war period was the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Among other things, this brought to a definite close a decades-long quarrel about the merits of markets and planners as allocators of resources. The verdict was that markets do it better.
Most people of moderate political opinion, left and right, would regard that as fair enough. In his new book, Robert Kuttner, one of America's best-known writers on economics, finds it tiresomely simplistic. His concern is with deeper trends and larger forces. His task is to herald the end of laissez faire-"as theory, as policy, and as the object of us ...