samuelson = heretic ?

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim D:The non-mixed economy (the pure market economy) exists only in the
minds of economists, like the Platonic Forms. The real-world economy is
merely a pale reflection of this ideal, so it's by its very nature "mixed."

^^^^^
CB: Oh here Samuelson's larger "discussion" ( 1969) reminds of something we
touched on a week or so ago, the long term swing of capitalism between more
or less "private" dominance, "state-monopoly", etc.:

The Mixed Economy

Most of our attention will be devoted to the special features of economic
life fond in twentieth-century industrial nations ( with the exception of
the Soviet system). In most of these countries there was a trend in the past
few centuries toward less and less dirct governmental control of economic
activity; gradually feudal and preindustrial conditions were replaced by
greater emphasis on what is loosely called "free private enterprise" or
"competitive capitalism."

Long before this trend had approached a condition of full laissez faire
(i.e. of complete governmental noninterference with business), the tide
began to turn the other way. Since late in the nineteenth century, in almost
all the countries under consideration, there has been a steady increase in
the economic function of government.  We must leave to historians the task
of delineating the important factors underlying this significant and
all-pervasive development.

^^^^^^
CB: This was 1969. I wonder if Samuelson would say we have swung back to
more laissez-faire with neo-liberalism, privatization, austerity, etc.