The major positive of laissez faire capitalism is that
consumers get the lowest possible prices and, typically, the highest possible quality of
product. This happens because companies do not have to spend a lot of money complying
with things like minimum wage laws or labeling their products with all sorts of warnings
or anything like that. Laissez faire also allows companies to compete with one another
(as when airlines got deregulated) and that at owers prices. (Airline prices and phone
service prices are both much lower than they were back in the early 80s when the
industry was more heavily regulated.)
The main negative is
that laissez faire allows firms to do bad things to their workers and (if they can get
away with it) to the their customers. In a true laissez faire system, workers might not
be protected from unsafe workplaces. Firms might sell products that were not
sufficiently safe. Firms would be allowed to pollute more than they can now. When
government does not impose any rules, it becomes more possible for bad results like this
to hapen.
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