This article traces economists’s attitudes towards government intervention since the term ‘laissez-faire’ was first used in late 17th- or early 18th-century France. Understanding of the term has changed significantly since then. Adam Smith, popularly associated with laissez-faire, had a much more nuanced and pragmatic view of the role of the state, as did many of the classical economists and their neoclassical successors. Dissatisfaction with certain aspects of industrial capitalism led to a more interventionist stance during the 20th century, though the second half of the century saw something of a reversion towards the classical approach.
Keywords
- Banking School
- Bastiat, C. F.
- Behavioural economics
- Boisguilbert, P.
- Bright, J.
- Cairnes, J. E.
- Cambridge School
- Capitalism
- Chalmers, T.
- Chicago School
- Cobden, R.
- Consumer surplus
- Corporatism
- Cowles Commission
- Currency competition
- Currency school
- Division of labour
- Economic freedom
- Efficient allocation
- Free banking
- Gold standard
- Government failure
- Great depression
- Hayek, F. A. von
- Hobson, J. A.
- Information, economic of
- Institutionalism
- Keynes, J. M.
- Keynesianism
- Laissez-faire
- Lange, O. R.
- List, F.
- Manchester school
- Marginal revolution
- Market failure
- Market socialism
- Markets
- Marshall, A.
- McCulloch, J. R.
- Mercantilism
- Mill, J. S.
- Minimum wages
- Mises, L. E. von
- Mont Pèlerin Society
- Natural liberty
- New classical macroeconomics
- New Deal
- North, D.
- Optimal resource allocation
- Planning
- Public choice
- Rational behaviour
- Rational choice
- Ricardo, D.
- Role of government
- Samuelson, P. A.
- Sidgwick, H.
- Smith, A.
- Socialist calculation debate
- Underconsumptionism
- Utilitarianism
- Viner, J.
- Walras, L.
JEL Classifications
- B1
This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
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Backhouse, R.E., Medema, S.G. [2008]. Laissez-faire, Economists and. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. //doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2206-1