Market economy

MARKET ECONOMY

Market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a market economy is the existence of factor markets that play a dominant role in the allocation of capital and the factors of production.^[1][2]

Market economies range from minimally regulated free-market and laissez-faire systems where state activity is restricted to providing public goods and services and safeguarding private ownership,^[3] to interventionist forms where the government plays an active role in correcting market failures and promoting social welfare. State intervention can happen at the production, distribution, trade and consumption areas in the economy. The distribution of basic need services and goods like health care may be entirely regulated by an egalitarian public health care policy (while having the production provided by private enterprise), effectively eliminating the forces of supply and demand.
State-directed or dirigist economies are those where the state plays a directive role in guiding the overall development of the market through industrial policies or indicative planning—which guides yet does not substitute the market for economic planning—a form sometimes referred to as a mixed economy.^[4][5]
Market economies are contrasted with planned economies where investment and production decisions are embodied in an integrated economy-wide economic plan. In a centrally planned economy, economic planning is the principal allocation mechanism between firms rather than markets, with the economy's means of production being owned and operated by a single organizational body.^{[6][better source needed]}
For market economies to function efficiently, governments must establish clearly defined and enforceable property rights for assets and capital goods. However, property rights does not specifically mean private property rights and market economies do not logically presuppose the existence of private ownership of the means of production. Market economies can and often do include various types of cooperatives or autonomous state-owned enterprises that acquire capital goods and raw materials in capital markets. These enterprises utilize a market-determined free price system to allocate capital goods and labor.^[7] In addition, there are many variations of market socialism where the majority of capital assets are socially owned with markets allocating resources between socially owned firms. These models range from systems based on employee-owned enterprises based on self-management to a combination of public ownership of the means of production with factor markets.^[8]
Market economies rely upon a price system to signal market actors to adjust production and investment. Price formation relies on the interaction of supply and demand to reach or approximate an equilibrium where unit price for a particular good or service is at a point where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied.
Governments can intervene by establishing price ceilings or price floors in specific markets (such as minimum wage laws in the labor market), or use fiscal policy to discourage certain consumer behavior or to address market externalities generated by certain transactions (Pigovian taxes). Different perspectives exist on the role of government in both regulating and guiding market economies and in addressing social inequalities produced by markets. Fundamentally, a market economy requires that a price system affected by supply and demand exists as the primary mechanism for allocating resources irrespective of the level of regulation.
Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for a profit, structured on the process of capital accumulation. In general, in capitalist systems investment, distribution, income and prices are determined by markets, whether regulated or unregulated.
There are different variations of capitalism with different relationships to markets. In laissez-faire and free-market variations of capitalism, markets are utilized most extensively with minimal or no state intervention and minimal or no regulation over prices and the supply of goods and services. In interventionist, welfare capitalism and mixed economies, markets continue to play a dominant role, but they are regulated to some extent by government in order to correct market failures or to promote social welfare. In state capitalist systems, markets are relied upon the least, with the state relying heavily on either indicative planning and/or state-owned enterprises to accumulate capital.
Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism. However, it is argued that the term mixed economies more precisely describes most contemporary economies due to their containing both private-owned and state-owned enterprises. In capitalism, prices determine the demand-supply scale. Higher demand for certain goods and services lead to higher prices and lower demand for certain goods lead to lower prices.
A capitalist free-market economy is an economic system where prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are expected by its supporters to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy. It typically entails support for highly competitive markets, private ownership of productive enterprises. Laissez-faire is a more extensive form of free-market economy where the role of the state is limited to protecting property rights and enforcing contracts.