The invention of laissez faire

Abstract

This chapter examines the birth of laissez faire liberalism. Laissez faire, a term taken from a phrase in French ‘laissez Faire et Laissez passer, le monde va de lui meme’, translates as ‘let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself’. Achieving this required that impediments to market forces such as laws and customs of providing welfare for the poor, which had operated for centuries, should be swept aside and that massive changes be made to how society was organised. The chapter discusses sociologist Max Weber's argument that capitalism was the product of a specifically new mindset and that ideological support for this as an economic system could be traced to shifts in religious beliefs and practices. Weber believes that the Puritan rules of Calvinism placed strict controls on individual behaviour that fostered the emergence of a distinctly new economic order. Unlike previous kinds of Christian ascetics who sought to withdraw from the material world, Puritans regarded work as a spiritual calling. The discussion also covers how R.H. Tawney focused on the intersections between religious and business ethics with respect to practices and prescriptions relating to usury. Then it sheds light on Adam Smith's analysis of the division of labour and his economic theory which held that individuals acted selfishly in the pursuit of their interests and in doing so contributed to the greater good. Next, it tackles Reverend Joseph Townsend's and Thomas Malthus' views on charity and population growth, respectively, in relation to mass hunger and starvation.