During a break in the match, I was talking to some tennis buddies: I’m at my vacation home in Canada, playing 3-on-3, which may sound weird, but it’s really fun.
He told me he was a progressive socialist and was frustrated by the inequalities created by capitalism — the system he was referring to in both Canada and the United States.
I replied that we are a mixed economy, not a capitalist one, so we cannot say that the current level of inequality is due to capitalism.
I pointed out that “mixed economy” was a good term. I had come across it in an introductory text by Paul Samuelson in the only economics class I took at the University of Winnipeg in 1969-1970. (The text was actually co-authored by Samuelson and Anthony Scott, a Canadian economist at UBC, because Samuelson needed someone who could add Canadian content dealing with Canadian institutions.) The term was in widespread use at the time.
However, when I asked my tennis friends, I was told the term has virtually disappeared.
What is a mixed economy? Wikipedia has a good explanation here.
The entire Wikipedia entry is worth reading, but here are the first two paragraphs:
a Mixed economy It is an economic system that accepts both. private Enterpriseand Nationalized Government services such as public works, security, military, welfare, education, etc. A mixed economy also encourages some regulation to protect the interests of the people, the environment, or the nation.
this is, Laissez-faire Capitalist economies are trying to eliminate or privatize most government services. Deregulate Economy, and completely Centrally Planned Economy it is Nationalize Most services are in their early stages soviet unionExamples of political philosophies that support a mixed economy include: Keynesianism, Social Liberalism, State capitalism, fascism, Social Democracy, Nordic modeland China Socialist Market Economy.
Government does a lot to reduce inequality, but it also does a lot to increase inequality. The specific example I pointed him to of a government institution that almost certainly increases inequality is the government’s near monopoly on K-12 schools. Poor kids get a worse quality education, and as with public schools, teacher unions make it worse by having a near monopoly on public schools’ most important input: labor.
I hereby declare that I will do everything in my power to revive the concept of a mixed economy.
Update: I just realized I posted about this in 2011. Ah yes, it’s worth saying again, this time in the context of inequality.
