Economics
Mixed Economy
A mixed economy is an economic system that combines elements of both capitalism and socialism. In a mixed economy, the government and the private sector coexist, with the government playing a role in regulating and providing certain goods and services, while allowing for private enterprise and market forces to operate. This system aims to balance individual freedom and social welfare.
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7 Key excerpts on "Mixed Economy"
- eBook - PDF
- Seyed Ali Fallahchay(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Society Publishing(Publisher)
One of the advantages of the Mixed Economy is the ability to balance the needs of the public with those of the private entities (Díaz-José et al., 2016). The traditional, command, and market economies tend to place different focuses or not focus on any one of the two elements at all (Díaz-José et al., 2016). That means that there can be an imbalance between the public and private interest (Poirier et al., 2015). Where the private interest gives undue precedence, safety standards and corporate social responsibility are simply ignored (Radjou et al., 2012). On the other hand, if the public interest gives undue precedence, then this might mean that private entities are no longer able to function within that economy because the restrictions on them are far too serious (Ryzhonkov, 2013). There have been some arguments about what a Mixed Economy really entails (Saji and Ellingstad, 2004). For example, one of the characteristics of this type of economy is the existence of both public and private enterprises (Abu-Saifan, 2012). Other economies require that certain sectors are exclusively under the control of the state, including health and education (Moulaert et al., 2010). Then there are some hybrid models in which the state and the private sector can work together (Saji and Ellingstad, 2004). An example of these is the public-private partnerships that are used to fund education in the UK (Sato, 2009). The rationale of the Mixed Economy is that there is sufficient balance between the needs of the private investor and the public good (Sato, 2009). The Economics of Innovation 42 The Mixed Economy has sometimes been characterized as a combination of socialist and capitalist elements, hence leaving out the other contributing systems such as communism (Conway and Steward, 2009). One school of thought is that the private and public sector must work together in a Mixed Economy so as to maximize the synergies from each sector (Poirier et al., 2015). - eBook - ePub
Pluralism and Corporatism
The Political Evolution of Modern Democracies
- Reginald J. Harrison(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
What the historical record shows is that questions about the distribution of material goods cannot be considered entirely apart from the economic activity which engenders them, as though they were a kind of consequent but separate ethical problem. Capitalism as an economic system connotes certain assumptions about economic distribution. It assumes that the possession and use of productive resources – land, capital, energy, talents – will bring differential rewards to the degree that they are needed in the market-place. Though all society benefits from the stimulus which economic incentives provide to an expansion of productive activity, any notions of justice in the sense of ‘fair shares’ or ‘equality’ are out of place. In terms of social values achieved, liberty’, loosely conceived, stands higher than ‘equality’, its historical societal rival. Centrally planned economic systems, on the other hand, have to face directly the ethical aspects of economic distribution as they relate to the governmentally defined overall goals and to ideologically based definitions of the ‘common good’. The development of the ‘Mixed Economy’ with its element of central planning presents, increasingly, the same ethical problem.In practice, perhaps needless to say, there never have been ‘pure’ versions of the two kinds of economic system. Compassion, notions of justice and the pressures of powerful economic interests on government have modified a simple market distribution of resources (though not always in the direction of equality),5 and in central economic planning in Eastern Europe ideas of distributive justice are muddied in practice by strategic, incentive considerations in the pursuit of immediate economic growth targets. But the development of the Mixed Economy of the advanced industrial societies and the planning role of the state which it subsumes, brings the rivalry between liberty and equality to the forefront of political dispute. Different, albeit vaguely - eBook - ePub
- Ralph Miliband(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Verso(Publisher)
4The Mixed Economy,Socialist Style
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In the economic realm as elsewhere, socialist democracy represents both an extension of capitalist democracy, and a transcendence of it.State intervention in the economy is the best example of what this means. The fashion in recent years has been to denigrate state intervention and to exalt the virtues of the market. Yet one of the most notable features of the history of capitalism from its beginnings right up to the present day has been its reliance on the state and its dependence upon it.For the state is, by its very nature, inevitably involved in ‘economic life’ by virtue of the budgetary and taxation policies which it alone can promulgate and implement. But state intervention goes far beyond this. For it is the state, even in the regimes most dedicated to ‘free enterprise’, which provides capitalism with protection and help, not only in political, legal, police and military terms, but also in strictly economic terms as well, by way of subsidies, allowances, tariffs, concessions, contracts, rescue of failing banks and other enterprises, protection from foreign competition, and a host of other measures designed to help capitalist enterprise. So too has the state had to intervene in economic life in order to protect society from the depredations wrought by a capitalism which cannot afford to be unduly concerned with the individual and social costs generated by the logic of the system. Governments have had to save capitalism from itself, and to deploy on its behalf a consciousness which, left alone, it has been unable to develop in relation to what is required for its preservation and strengthening. In short, the survival of the system has always depended on government intervention in the economy; and it is worth stressing how much, as a system of domination and exploitation, it has depended on the coercive power of the state. - eBook - ePub
Evolutionary Economics: v. 2
Institutional Theory and Policy
- Marc R. Tool(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Recitation and repetition of ideas and examples of institutional modification and combination obviously do not constitute “proof” of the necessity of the pragmatic non-dogmatic economy. But they do provide persuasive argumentation that the dynamism of a technological society calls for a related dynamism of institutional forms. The multiplicity of evolutionary modifications of the societal environment generate, with lags large or small, new combinations of institutional arrangements and policy modifications that themselves lead to further societal adjustment in yet another environmental shift. Fortunately, human communities regularly demonstrate an adaptive adjustment capacity (perhaps a compulsion) through which evolving institutional structures may be tested against criteria of social desirability and subsequently modified yet again in a ceaseless effort at recreation of enhanced life potential. Throughout this endless process, the search within the human community is for effective and appropriate methods of guidance and control such that the direction of change remains forward. Hence the necessity of the Mixed Economy.An Evaluation of the Mixed Economy
All contemporary industrialized economies are mixed economies; no ideologically pure, qualitatively superior alternatives present themselves for the foreseeable future (obviously the elements of the “mix” can be alternatively organized); are those optimistic or pessimistic conclusions? How well have the mixed economies performed? Shall we be sanguine or apprehensive?As previously asserted, the Mixed Economy is an instrumental assemblage of institutions and policies intended to organize and control the provisioning process such that society progresses toward desired ends-in-view. Its success can be evaluated and its progress measured through assessment of the degree of adequacy, sustainability, equity, and democracy evident in the economies in question.The issue of adequacy of productive performance, as represented, for example, by aggregate output in the OECD countries, needs only cursory mention. These are the highest examples of economic “development,” the “affluent societies,” the locus of the “demonstration effect” for the remainder of the world. A dozen or so of these economies, in the mid-1980s, generate annual per capita GNP of more than $10,000, which may be compared with the “inadequacy” in the fifty or so economies with annual per capita GNPs of under $1000.19 - eBook - ePub
- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- KW Publishers(Publisher)
4 A Mixed Economy’s Endeavour for Growth Without DependenceTHE INDIAN ECONOMY, for the past three decades (19650’s to 1980)has been subjected to a continuous process of planned restructuring under central direction. An interesting consequence of this effort has been the increasing infusion of a national political vision into the economic order. This progressive politicization of the economy is, however, only superficially comparable to a similar process in the modern variant of the market economy.1 The latter, while receiving measured doses of state regulation in exchange of the legal support it needs and receives for its long term operation can also manage to exert an occasional back-lash on the state authorities through its own political support structure across the social spectrum.This spectacle, much as it is attractive to the barons of private business in India , generally appears in a subdued from because of the Mixed Economy arrangement. Under this set-up the major macro- economic decisions such as allocation of scarce and strategic resources, choice of sectors for massive planned investment, pattern of technology assimilation and, above all ,the inflow and outflow of resources across other countries are mostly taken care of by the State and therefore, largely subject to the political perceptions of those who are in power. In this sense economic planning may be viewed as a necessary extension of national politics.As discussed earlier, one of the preoccupations of planning in India relates to the question of dependence and its successful reversal. The terms in which dependency, actual or apprehended, is conceived relate primarily to the threat perception of the national elite. While these threat perceptions get articulated through public agencies full play is given to economic nationalism so that all the vital sectors of the economy are put on alert and unite in their efforts to offer an effective resistance. In building up this resistance the public authorities have to count upon the support of the business community whose response, in turn, would depend not only upon its own appreciation of the situation but also upon its habitual relations with the wielders of political power. - eBook - PDF
Economics
Theory and Practice
- Patrick J. Welch, Gerry F. Welch(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
The exchange of the latte is made because the price is suitable to both buyer and seller. Essential to this system is private property rights, which give individuals and businesses the right to own resources, goods, and services and to use them as they choose. In a pure market economy, individuals are free to form businesses, operate with a profit motive, and make their own decisions about price or product‐related matters or to engage in free enterprise. Pure market systems, where individual buyers and sellers make all economic decisions with no government intervention, have virtually disappeared. But price sys- tems are extremely important for us to understand because they provide the philo- sophical and operational bases for economies like the U.S. market economy. The United States has kept the key features of a market economy, although it is more of a mixed system because of government’s role. Markets have existed in different types of economies throughout the history of the world. In some instances, markets have served simply as an allocation mechanism to aid people in making the basic economic decisions. Even planned economies have used markets in modern times to help allocate goods and services. For example, the former Soviet Union used markets even prior to the economic restructuring of the 1990s. Market economies are usually associated with capitalism, an economic system in which private individuals own the factors of production and operate on a free‐enterprise basis. Pure capitalist economies leave little room for government interference. The Operation of a Market Economy We can best illustrate the operation of a pure market economy with no government intervention by a circular flow model, such as that in Figure 2.2. This model shows how businesses and households relate to one another as buyers and sellers. - eBook - ePub
Macroeconomic Principles and Problems
A Pluralist Introduction
- Geoffrey Schneider(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
They prefer strictly regulated capitalism. Radical economists go even further, preferring democratic socialism, an economic system in which the most important resources of society are controlled democratically by all citizens, including workers, who usually have little say in how market capitalist economies are run. From this perspective, markets are not particularly efficient, because they produce wasteful and unnecessary goods while neglecting other, more important things such as public health, leisure time with one’s family, workers’ quality of life, and the environment. Depending on which economists have the most influence and the economic views of politicians, the economic systems of countries around the globe exhibit substantial variations. Almost all modern economies can be classified as mixed market capitalist, in that they depend on markets for the production and distribution of most goods and services but they also utilize a substantial degree of government intervention. As you can see from Figure 1.5 on the next page, which depicts the size of the government sector in selected economies around the world, the United States has the smallest government of any developed economy, coming the closest to unregulated market capitalism. One of the reasons for this is that the United States is the only developed economy without a national health care system. Even very market-oriented countries like the United Kingdom and Australia provide national health care to all citizens
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