# laissez faire >[!Ref] Lexicon ># laissez faire > (French). Short for laissez faire, laissez passer, a French phrase meaning to let things alone, let them pass. First used by the eighteenth century Physiocrats (see "Physiocracy") as an injunction against government interference with trade. Now used freely as a synonym for free market economics, or what [Mises](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#Ludwig%20von%20Mises)prefers to call the unhampered market economy (see "Market economy, the free or unhampered"). > [[Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (AC.)]] 83, 91; [[Human Action - Mises (HA)]] 9,619-20,730-32,748,840; [[Planning for Freedom - Mises (PF)]] 36-49, 58, 141, 177, 182; [[Socialism - Mises (S)]] 323.