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Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 10 of my late colleague Jim Buchanan [2]‘s 1971 paper “The Bases for Collective Action,” as this paper is reprinted in James M. Buchanan, Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory [3] (2001), which is volume 15 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:

unknownPerhaps more important than any efficiency advantage, however, is the market organization’s minimization of man’s power over man….

As we move away from idealized models of the pure-market economy, the efficiency advantages of laissez faire may disappear in many specific cases.  The personal freedom of the individual participant that a free-trade or free-exchange (free-enterprise) economy guarantees remains a major advantage of this organizational structure, even when the real-world departures from the conditions required for markets to work perfectly are acknowledged.

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