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Article: Laissez Faire
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
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LAISSEZ FAIRE
Laissez faire is an economic theory that favors the free market and is suspicious of government intervention in the conduct of business and industry. It encourages private ownership and personal initiative as the best means to enrich individuals and societies. Most laissez-faire economists would admit that there are situations when government intervention is essential, but they would prefer to keep the state's role to a minimum. The term arose in the seventeenth century, when a French merchant responded to royal minister who asked how the government could help him by saying, "Laissez nous faire." The phrase is probably best translated, "Let us be." By the late eighteenth ...