A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment and distribution 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. 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, to interventionist forms where the government plays an active role in correcting market failures and promoting social welfare. 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. Market economies are contrasted with planned economies where investment and production decisions are embodied in an integrated economy-wide economic plan.

In a 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. 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, or use fiscal policy to discourage certain consumer behavior or to address market externalities generated by certain transactions. 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.

For market economies to function efficiently, governments must establish defined and enforceable property rights for assets and capital goods. However, property rights does not 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 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 labor. In addition, there are many variations of market socialism where the majority of capital assets are owned with markets allocating resources between 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. Capitalism refers to an economic system where the means of production are or privately owned and operated for a profit, structured on the process of capital accumulation.

In general, in capitalist systems investment, distribution 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 on either indirect economic planning and/or state-owned enterprises to accumulate capital. Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism, but most feel that the term mixed economies more describes most contemporary economies due to their containing both private-owned and state-owned enterprises.

In capitalism, prices determine the demand-supply scale. For example, higher demand for certain goods and services lead to higher prices and lower demand for certain goods lead to lower prices. Free-market economy refers to an economic system where prices for goods and services are set by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy, it entails support for 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. Laissez-faire is synonymous with what was referred to as strict capitalist free-market economy during the early and mid-19th century as a classical liberal ideal to achieve, it is understood that the necessary components for the functioning of an idealized free market include the complete absence of government regulation, artificial price pressures and government-granted monopolies and no taxes or tariffs other than what is necessary for the government to provide protection from coercion and theft, maintaining peace and property rights and providing for basic public goods.

Right-libertarian advocates of anarcho-capitalism see the state as morally illegitimate and eco

Daniel N. Paul, is a Mi'kmaq Elder, author and human rights activist. Paul is best known as the author of the book We Were Not the Savages. Paul asserts that this book is the first such history written by a First Nation citizen; the book is seen as an important contribution to the North American Indian movement. One writer stated, "It’s a Canadian version of Dee Brown’s best seller Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and, as such, served a valuable purpose in raising public consciousness about Mi’kmaq history and culture."Among his many awards, Paul has been conferred with the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia. He received from Université Sainte-Anne an honorary Doctor of Letters Degree, he has an honorary Law Degree from Dalhousie University, is the Recipient of the Grand Chief Donald Marshall Memorial Elder Award. He states: "High among the most appreciated honours that I’ve received during my career are the dozens of small items, Eagle Feathers, tobacco pouches, mugs, etc. given and sent to me by students as thanks for helping them better understand the importance of according all Peoples human dignity and respect."

During his active career, he has visited and lectured at most high schools, junior high schools, elementary schools in Nova Scotia, several out of province, all Universities in the Maritimes and at many others elsewhere in Canada and the United States of America. His brother Lawrence Paul is the former long-serving chief of Millbrook First Nation. Prior to Paul’s birth, his parents Sarah Agnes, née Noel, William Gabriel were relocated from Saint John, New Brunswick to Indian Brook, Nova Scotia. Paul was born at Indian Brook. During his childhood, he earned money through selling the Star Weekly, Liberty Magazine, greeting cards, painted the interior of houses, he had three children. He attended the Indian Day School on Shubenacadie Indian Reserve to grade eight, he left home for Boston when he was fourteen and came face to face with the oddities of big time city life for the first time. He laughs at his first memories of the adventure, saying good morning to all he encountered on the street and being fascinated by Bag Ladies.

He returned to Nova Scotia in 1960 to attend Success Business College, Truro, NS. He is self-educated and asserts that he has at least a Masters from the University of Life a Ph. D. In 1971 he began work for the Department of Indian Affairs, from 1981 to 1986 was the Department's Nova Scotia District Superintendent of Lands, Revenues and Statutory Requirements. A community activist, he was the founding Executive Director of the Confederacy of Mainland Micmacs from 1986 to 1994, while in this position, initiated fundraising for a new community centre for the Indian Brook Reserve and founded and published the Micmac/Maliseet Nations News, in addition to publishing duties he wrote editorials for the paper and much of its copy. During his tenure at CMM, Paul started a trust fund for the Confederacy, which would support financing legal issues for the six Bands associated with the organization, his leadership helped resolve the Afton Band's 170-year-old treaty claim to old Summerside property. In addition, he worked to resolve land claims for the Pictou Landing Band.

He has served on Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, on the Nova Scotia Department of Justice's Court Restructuring Task Force, among other provincial commissions, as a Justice of the Peace for the Province and has been a member of the Nova Scotia Police Review Board for over 20 years. He has written bi-weekly op-eds for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald newspaper. On January 14, 2000, he received a millennium award from the city of Halifax for his contributions. In 2001, Paul was involved with a CBC documentary entitled "Growing Up Native", in Bear Paw Productions' "Expulsion and the Bounty Hunter". Paul has written numerous articles in academic journals, he has written chapters for several books - two editions of the Mi'kmaq Anthology, Dawnland Voices, Living Treaties, Nova Scotia - Visions of the Future and Resistance, his novel Lightning Bolt will be published 2017 and his Bio by Jon Tattrie. His most well-known work is We Were Not the Savages, now in its third edition. Paul is critical of colonial historical accounts of the Mi’kmaq people: "Because of their belief that European civilizations were superior, therefore all others were inferior or savage, these writers reported the superior human rights practices of Amerindian civilization as if they were abnormal.

Using these biased records as gospel, many White authors have written works about Mi'kmaq civilization that do not present a true picture. Their efforts were taken with sincerity and honesty, but many, if not all, are lacking in two respects: they ignore the Mi'kmaq perspective on civilization and fail to appreciate that the values of the two cultures were in most cases opposite... More contemporary authors who have written about Amerindian civilizations have used European standards to evaluate the relative merits of these cultures, thus their efforts are flawed."Post-colonial historian Geoffrey Plank writes: "We Were Not the Savages is unique, in chronological scope and the story it tells, covering the last three centuries of Mi'kmaq history in detail. Prior to the appearance of this book it was common for historians to downplay or deny the violence inflicted on the Mi'kmaq people by European and Euro-American colonizers; this work, more than any other piec

The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year, it was established in 1979 in memory of author Sue Kaufman. 1980 - Jayne Anne Phillips, Black Tickets 1981 - Tom Lorenz, Guys Like Us 1982 - Ted Mooney, Easy Travel to Other Planets 1983 - Susanna Moore, My Old Sweetheart 1984 - Denis Johnson, Angels 1985 - Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine 1986 - Cecile Pineda, Face 1987 - Jeannette Haien, The All of It 1988 - Kaye Gibbons, Ellen Foster 1989 - Gary Krist, The Garden State 1990 - Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All 1991 - Charles Palliser, The Quincunx 1992 - Alex Ullmann, Afghanistan 1993 - Francisco Goldman, The Long Night of White Chickens 1994 - Emile Capouya, In the Sparrow Hills 1995 - Jim Grimsley, Winter Birds 1996 - Peter Landesman, The Raven 1997 - Brad Watson, Last Days of the Dog-Men 1998 - Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain 1999 - Michael Byers, The Coast of Good Intentions 2000 - Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges 2001 - Akhil Sharma, An Obedient Father 2002 - Don Lee, Yellow 2003 - Gabe Hudson, Dear Mr. President 2004 - Nell Freudenberger, Lucky Girls 2005 - John Dalton, Heaven Lake 2006 - Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation 2007 - Tony D'Souza, Whiteman 2008 - Frances Hwang, Transparency 2009 - Charles Bock, Beautiful Children 2010 - Josh Weil, The New Valley 2011 - Brando Skyhorse, The Madonnas of Echo Park 2012 - Ismet Prcic, Shards 2013 - Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds 2014 - Manuel Gonzales, The Miniature Wife 2015 - Michael Carroll, Little Reef and Other Stories 2016 - Kirstin Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas 2017 - Lee Clay Johnson, Nitro Mountain 2018 - Emily Fridlund, History of Wolves 2019 - Jane Delury, Literature Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction