In 1787, America’s founding fathers created the world’s first laissez-faire constitution or what I call a constitution of liberty.
The idea of a laissez-faire constitution may strike you as odd. We typically associate the term “laissez-faire” with economics, and, more specifically, with capitalism.
What, then, do I mean by these terms? What is a laissez-faire constitution or a constitution of liberty? And what’s the relationship between a laissez-faire constitution and laissez-faire capitalism?
To answer these questions, let us define our terms. Laissez-faire translated from its most common eighteenth-century French usage literally means “let it be,” “let it go,” or “leave it alone.” In the Anglo-American world, the phrase is more commonly translated as “hands off.”
