Routledge Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition
An ECONOMY combining the methods and goals of CAPITALISM and SOCIALISM, particularly by encouraging the growth of the public sector. Partly under the influence of KEYNES, there has been in many Western countries a commitment to FULL EMPLOYMENT which encouraged the growth of the public sector and, hence, the mixed economy.
In this type of economy, the basic capitalist model is augmented in a number of ways. To market principles are added some income redistribution through taxation and welfare benefits; to private sector firms, state-owned bodies; to pricing, a planning system, usually of no more than an INDICATIVE kind. Many West European economies, particularly Germany and Sweden, are of this kind. The UK economy until 1979 was often described as being mixed, but in the 1980s with the abandonment of INCOMES POLICIES, the PRIVATIZATION of several NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES and the attempt to apply MONETARISM, the term is less applicable.
References
Lord Roll of Ipsden (ed.) (1982) ‘The mixed economy’, Proceedings of Section F (Economics) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting, London: Macmillan.
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