Also laisser-faire. [Fr.; laissez imp. of laisser to let + faire to do, i.e., let (people) do (as they think best).
Laissez faire et laissez passer was the maxim of the French free-trade economists of the 18th c.; it is usually attributed to Gournay (Littré s.v. laisser).]
A phrase expressive of the principle that government should not interfere with the action of individuals, esp. in industrial affairs and in trade. Also attrib. Hence Laissez-faireism.
1825. [Marq. Normanby], Eng. in Italy, I. 296. The laissez faire system of apathy.
1848. Simmonds’s Colon. Mag., Aug., 338. Mammonism, laissez-faireism, Chartism, currency-restriction [etc.].
1873. H. Spencer, Stud. Sociol., xiv. 352. Shall we not call that also a laissez-faire that is almost wicked in its indifference.
1887. Contemp. Rev., May, 696. The ‘orthodox’ laissez-faire political economy.
1891. S. C. Scrivener, Our Fields & Cities, 168. Laissez-faire is the motto, the gospel, of the person who lives upon the work of another.
