rathi

Laissez today is simply an oversimplification of the requirements needed for a healthy market. The healthy market has competition or low-barriers to entry. Adam Smith recognized that in his day, parliament used its political power to create monopolies that benefited themselves at the economies expense. He spoke out against such government interference of being harmful to economy, and he was right. However, there are other groups that also seek to negatively impact a market. Corporations have also used their wealth and organization to similarly interfere with markets. Adam Smith never wrote about them, because corporations as powerful independent organizations didn't exist in his day. Today, his message about promoting an open market has been lost, and been replaced with a negative assumption of any government involvement in the economy. Its certainly true that the government involvement can hurt the economy, but its not a given assumption, and sometimes the government needs to step in to prevent others from manipulating the market. The argument should be which factors are hurting the economy for that specific market, not a blanket statement that incorrectly treats all markets the same.

__________________
He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.