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Edited on Mon Jul-25-05 05:52 PM by idlisambar
Which most closely corresponds with your view...
1 "Laissez Faire": The government role should be minimal; the market is the best arbiter of economic outcomes. Government intervention distorts the market and leads to inefficiency. People could learn a thing or two by reading Hayek.
2 "Referee": Capitalism is a great system but it has to have rules, and a government presence is required to ensure fair play and some responsibility to ensure citizens have an opportunity to succeed. The government also has a role in correcting situations in which negative externalities exist, such as discouraging pollution or overfishing. Otherwise, the government should not generally be concerned with economic outcomes.
3 "Safety Net": Society has a responsibility to meet the basic needs of its members. Extreme poverty is not tolerable in an advanced industrialized society such as our own, and the government has a responsibility to eliminate it. The government should be concerned with the health and welfare of its citizens, and it should create conditions for a prosperous society, but it should not try to exert too much influence over the workings of firms and individuals other than to ensure fair play. The U.S. could learn a thing or two from Norway and Sweden.
4 "CEO": The government should actively advance the economic welfare of the state; the configuration of industry should not be trusted to the market alone, but should be guided by the government to ensure the interests of the nation and its citizens are advanced. Capital is too valuable to the state to be left in the hands of capitalists -- it should be directed toward strategic industries. The welfare of the capitalist should not be at the expense of the worker or the state. However, the government hand should be applied only indirectly so that the system operates semi-autonomously. The U.S. could learn a thing or two from Japan and South Korea.
5 "Command": Resources should be controlled and distributed by the state according to the ideals of equality and fairness. Prices and salaries should be set by the government to ensure that there is no excess privilege or abject poverty. Firms should be state-controlled. There are lessons to be learned from the Soviet system.
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