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( Laissez-faire)
Laissez-faire (pronunciation French, [l?sef??]&_160;(help·info); English, ?le?se?'f??r&_160;(help·info)) is a French phrase literally meaning Let do (“allow to do”). From the French dictum employed by the eighteenth century physiocrats as an injunction against government interference with trade, it emerged as an economic ideology which advocates minimal state intervention in the economy. Some writers suggest that laissez-faire capitalism never existed in the human marketplace.[2][3] It is generally understood as a doctrine that private initiative and production are best, if economic interventionism and taxation by the state beyond what is necessary to maintain individual liberty, peace, security, and property rights, are kept to a minimum.[4] Laissez-faire capitalism may be supported by proponents of minarchism and Objectivism.[5] Libertarians argue that laissez-faire produces greater prosperity and personal freedom than other economic systems. The Austrian School of economics and the Chicago School of economics are important figures in support of laissez-faire economics. Market anarchists, though not laissez-faireists,[6] take the idea of laissez-faire to its extreme by opposing all compulsory state intervention including taxation, preferring that law and order be privately funded. The exact origins of the term "laissez-faire" as a slogan of economic liberalism are uncertain. According to historical folklore, the phrase stems from a meeting c. 1680 between the powerful French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre. When the eager mercantilist minister asked how the French state could be of service to the merchants, Le Gendre replied simply "Laissez-nous faire" ('Leave us be', lit. 'Let us do').[7] The laissez faire slogan became closely associated with Vincent de Gournay, a French intendant of commerce in the 1750s and ardent proponent of the removal of restrictions on trade and the deregulation of industry in France. Gournay was delighted by the LeGendre anecdote, and forged it into a larger maxim all his own "Laissez faire et laissez passer" ('Let do and let pass'). Although Gournay left no written tracts on his economic policy ideas, he had immense personal influence on the thinking of his contemporaries, notably the Physiocrats and is generously acknowledged in their testimonies. Among others, Jacques Turgot, the Marquis de Mirabeau, the Comte d'Albon and, most insistently, DuPont de Nemours credit both the 'laissez-faire' slogan and doctrine to Gournay.[8]. It was Mirabeau who identified Gournay's motto as the longer "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" ('Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself!')
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