What is Laissez-Faire?

Jeffrey Tucker
Dec. 15, 2011

The latest data show that book sales are way up this season. So much for the prediction that books will be killed by technology. On the contrary, technology has enabled the great literature of the ages and the present to be put in the hands of everyone. I can't think of a better time to begin refurbishing Laissez-Faire Books (founded in 1972), because it is the market that laissez-faire celebrates that has made all the literature we love more accessible than ever.

Addison Wiggin, president of Agora Financial, and I were discussing the various challenges ahead of us as we infuse new life into an old and venerable institution. He drew my attention to a point that I've overlooked. Most people don't know the term "laissez-faire." They don't know how to say it (that very day, I was introduced for a speech, and the host mispronounced it) and they don't know what it means. Once in common circulation, this term has not been in common use, even in libertarian circles. So we have some work to do, in helping people even understand the name of the bookstore at lfb.org.

The pronunciation in English is lay-say-fair. Its French origins date back to the late Renaissance. As the story goes, it was first used about the year 1680, a time when the nation-state was on the rise throughout Europe. The French finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, asked a merchant named M. Le Gendre what the state could do to promote industry.

According to legend, the reply came: "Laissez-nous faire," or "let it be." This incident was reported in 1751 in the Journal Oeconomique by the free-trade champion Rene de Voyer, Marquis d'Argenson. The slogan was codified finally in the words of Vincent de Gournay: "Laissez-faire et laissez-passer, le monde va de lui mÃªme!" The loose translation: "Let it be and let goods pass; the world goes by itself."

We've rendered this in the form you see on our masthead: Leave the world alone, it manages itself. You could shorten it: Let it be.

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