1. What is "Equality of Opportunity"?
- Author
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Neilson, Francis
- Subjects
FREE enterprise ,CAPITALISM ,PHYSIOCRATS ,ECONOMIC systems - Abstract
This article focuses on equality of opportunity in society. The physiocrats, who advocated an economic system of laissez faire, were a clear-thinking body of men. It was not until long after the enclosure acts had depopulated the countrysides of England and driven men into the towns that the term laissez faire was applied to industry. But at no time since the discovery of coal and steam has there been such a condition as a fair field and no favor. Indeed, it was a denial of laissez faire which produced a capitalism that throve on low-paid labor. In the U.S. an industrial system of laissez faire has not existed since the birth of trade unionism. Protective tariffs, factory laws, social legislation, and trade union demands for higher nominal wage and fewer working hours are contrary to all the ideas that were held by the physiocrats. It is not a question of whether these expedients were necessary to ameliorate the economic distress. The consequence of such legislation shows clearly that as more of these measures are put upon the statute book, more are required to bolster them.
- Published
- 1950
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