Free market
In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority, from all forms of economic privilege and artificial scarcities.. Proponents of the concept of free market contrast it with a regulated market in which a government intervenes in supply and demand through various methods, such as tariffs, used to restrict trade and to protect the local economy. In an idealized free-market economy, 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. Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those forces to operate to control productive output and distribution.
Although free markets are associated with capitalism within a market economy in contemporary usage and popular culture, free markets have been advocated by anarchists and some proponents of cooperatives and advocates of profit sharing. Criticism of the theoretical concept may regard systems with significant market power, inequality of bargaining power, or information asymmetry as less than free, with regulation being necessary to control those imbalances in order to allow markets to function more efficiently as well as produce more desirable social outcomes; the laissez-faire principle expresses a preference for an absence of non-market pressures on prices and wages, such as those from discriminatory government taxes, tariffs, regulations of purely private behavior, or government-granted or coercive monopolies. In The Pure Theory of Capital, Friedrich Hayek argued that the goal is the preservation of the unique information contained in the price itself; the definition of free market has been disputed and made complex by collectivist political philosophers and socialist economic ideas.
This contention arose from the divergence from classical economists such as Richard Cantillon, Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Robert Malthus and from the continental economic science developed by the Spanish scholastic and French classical economists, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, Jean-Baptiste Say and Frédéric Bastiat. During the marginal revolution, subjective value theory was rediscovered. Although laissez-faire has been associated with capitalism, there is a similair left-wing laissez-faire system called free-market anarchism known as free-market anti-capitalism and free-market socialism to distinguish it from laissez-faire capitalism. Thus, critics of laissez-faire as understood argues that a laissez-faire system would be anti-capitalist and socialist. Various forms of socialism based on free markets have existed since the 19th century. Early notable socialist proponents of free markets include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Benjamin Tucker and the Ricardian socialists.
These economists believed that genuinely free markets and voluntary exchange could not exist within the exploitative conditions of capitalism. These proposals ranged from various forms of worker cooperatives operating in a free market economy, such as the mutualist system proposed by Proudhon, to state-owned enterprises operating in unregulated and open markets; these models of socialism are not to be confused with other forms of market socialism where publicly owned enterprises are coordinated by various degrees of economic planning, or where capital good prices are determined through marginal cost pricing. Advocates of free-market socialism such as Jaroslav Vanek argue that genuinely free markets are not possible under conditions of private ownership of productive property. Instead, he contends that the class differences and inequalities in income and power that result from private ownership enable the interests of the dominant class to skew the market to their favor, either in the form of monopoly and market power, or by utilizing their wealth and resources to legislate government policies that benefit their specific business interests.
Additionally, Vanek states that workers in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises have stronger incentives to maximize productivity because they would receive a share of the profits in addition to receiving their fixed wage or salary. Socialists assert that free-market capitalism leads to an excessively skewed distribution of income which in turn leads to social instability; as a result, corrective measures in the form of social welfare, re-distributive taxation and administrative costs are required, but they end up being paid into workers hands who spend and help the economy to run. They claim. Thus, free-market socialism desires government regulation of markets to prevent social instability, although at the cost of taxpayer dollars; as explained above, for classical economists such as Adam Smith the term free market does not refer to a market free from government interference, but rather free from all forms of economic privilege and artificial scarcities. This implies that economic rents, i.e. profits generated from a lack of perfect competition, must be reduced or eliminated as much as possible through free competition.
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Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the river Vienne. It is one of the 12 departments; the neighbouring departments are: Creuse, Corrèze, Charente and Indre. There are three arrondissements in the department; the chief and largest city in the department is Limoges, the other towns in the department each having fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants. Haute-Vienne is part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, it is bordered by six departments. The department has two main rivers. To the southeast of the department lies the Massif Central, the highest point in the department is Puy Lagarde, 795 m; the source of the Charente is in the department, in the commune of Chéronnac, near Rochechouart. At the west end of the department is the Rochechouart crater, an impact crater caused by a meteorite that crashed into the earth's surface over 200 million years ago. A few Paleolithic and Mesolithic remains have been found in the department, Neolithic inhabitants are attested to by standing stones and by burial chambers, like the dolmen Chez Boucher in La Croix-sur-Gartempe, others at Berneuil and Breuilaufa.
Artefacts from the Bronze Age include. With the coming of the Romans, trade was opened up and gold and tin were mined. Agriculture developed and grapes were grown. During the reign of Augustus, the city of Augustoritum was founded at a strategic ford across the Vienne; the Romans built roads from here to Brittany and the Mediterranean. The city declined in the 3rd Century; the domination of the Visigoths was short-lived and Clovis I seized control of Limousin after the battle of Vouillé in 507. By 674, the region was attached to the duchy of Aquitaine, the Viscount of Limoges was created. There followed an unsettled period with various powers vying for control. In 1199, Richard Cœur de Lion was mortally wounded during the siege of the Château de Châlus-Chabrol; the region was much involved in the Hundred Years' War and at the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, France granted England a large area of territory comprising much of Limousin. Limoges city rebelled and gave its allegiance to the French crown, as a result was sacked in 1370.
Further troubled years followed but when peace was restored, the department benefited economically. After a revolt by the peasants, Henri IV brought prosperity to the region of Limousin, he was greeted enthusiastically. The Counter-Reformation led to the creation of numerous convents and religious orders in Limoges. In 1761, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was appointed intendent of Limoges, he negotiated a reduction in taxes payable by the region and developed fairer methods of collecting taxes, as well as improving the road system and encouraging agricultural development. Around 1765, kaolin was discovered near Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche in the south of the department, the porcelain industry developed; the department was created on 4 March 1790, during the French Revolution, the southern half being a subdivision of the Region of Limousin while the northern half was carved out of the county of Marche, as well as some parts of Angoumois and Poitou. At first it was given the number 81, but in the nineteenth century, the number was changed to the 87th department, when further land to the east and northeast was added.
It takes its name from the upper reaches of the Vienne. In 1998, the southwest part of the department, together with the northern part of the region of Périgord was designated as the Parc Naturel Régional Périgord-Limousin. In 2013, twenty million euros were earned from agriculture in the province, as against twenty-one million three hundred thousand from Limousin. There were 351,475 cattle in 22,780 pigs, 320,500 sheep and 6,500 goats. 723,340 hectolitres of milk were produced from 30,690 hectolitres from sheep. In the same year, 1,897,800 hectares of cereals were grown and in the previous year, 12,294 hectares of land were producing organic foodstuffs. In 1801, the population of the department was 245,150, it grew over the next century so that in 1901 it was 381,753. It peaked at 385,732 in 1906, fell back in 1911 to 384,736 and fell to 350,235 in 1921, after the Great War. By 1954 it had dwindled to 324,429 but after that it began to rise again, in 2007 stood at 371,102; the three arrondissements of the Haute-Vienne department are: Arrondissement of Bellac, with 63 communes.
The population of the arrondissement was 42,687 in 1990 and 40,120 in 1999, a decrease of 6.01%. Arrondissement of Limoges, with 108 communes; the population of the arrondissement was 274,643 in 1990 and 278,439 in 1999, an increas
John Bright
John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies. A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn Laws. In partnership with Richard Cobden, he founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the Corn Laws, which raised food prices and protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat; the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846. Bright worked with Cobden in another free trade initiative, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Second French Empire; this campaign was conducted in collaboration with French economist Michel Chevalier, succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French. Bright sat in the House of Commons from 1843 to 1889, promoting free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom, he was a lone voice in opposing the Crimean War. He was a spokesman for the middle class, opposed to the privileges of the landed aristocracy.
In terms of Ireland, he sought to end the political privileges of Anglicans, disestablished the Church of Ireland, began land reform that would turn land over to the Catholic peasants. He coined the phrase "the mother of parliaments." Bright was born at Greenbank, Rochdale, in Lancashire, England—one of the early centres of the Industrial Revolution. His father, Jacob Bright, was a much-respected Quaker, who had started a cotton mill at Rochdale in 1809. Jacob's father, was a Wiltshire yeoman, early in the 18th century, moved to Coventry, where his descendants remained. Jacob Bright was educated at the Ackworth School of the Society of Friends, apprenticed to a fustian manufacturer at New Mills, Derbyshire. John Bright was his son by his second wife, Martha Wood, daughter of a Quaker shopkeeper of Bolton-le-Moors. Educated at Ackworth School, she was a woman of great strength of character and refined taste. There were eleven children of this marriage, his younger brother was an MP and mayor. His sisters included Margaret Bright Lucas.
John was a delicate child, was sent as a day pupil to a boarding school near his home, kept by William Littlewood. A year at the Ackworth School, two years at Bootham School, a year and a half at Newton, near Clitheroe, completed his education, he learned, he himself said, but little Latin and Greek, but acquired a great love of English literature, which his mother fostered, a love of outdoor pursuits. In his sixteenth year, he entered his father's mill, in due time became a partner in the business. In Rochdale, Jacob Bright was a leader of the opposition to a local church-rate. Rochdale was prominent in the movement for parliamentary reform, by which the town claimed to have a member allotted to it under the Reform Bill. John Bright took part in both campaigns, he was an ardent Nonconformist, proud to number among his ancestors John Gratton, a friend of George Fox, one of the persecuted and imprisoned preachers of the Religious Society of Friends. His political interest was first kindled by the Preston election in 1830, in which Edward Stanley, after a long struggle, was defeated by Henry "Orator" Hunt.
But it was as a member of the Rochdale Juvenile Temperance Band that Bright first learned public speaking. These young men went out into the villages, borrowed a chair of a cottager, spoke from it at open-air meetings. John Bright's first extempore speech was at a temperance meeting. Bright got his notes muddled, broke down; the chairman gave out a temperance song, during the singing told Bright to put his notes aside and say what came into his mind. Bright obeyed, began with much hesitancy, but found his tongue and made an excellent address, although sometimes he spoke with a confused syntax. Tales of these early years circulated through Britain and the United States late into his career, to the extent that students at institutions such as the young Cornell University regarded him as an exemplar for activities such as the Irving Literary Society. On some early occasions, however, he committed his speech to memory. In 1832 he called on the Rev. John Aldis, an eminent Baptist minister, to accompany him to a local Bible meeting.
Mr Aldis described him as a slender, modest young gentleman, who surprised him by his intelligence and thoughtfulness, but who seemed nervous as they walked to the meeting together. At the meeting he made a stimulating speech, on the way home asked for advice. Mr Aldis counselled him not to learn his speeches, but to write out and commit to memory certain passages and the peroration; this "first lesson in public speaking", as Bright called it, was given in his twenty-first year, but he had not contemplated a public career. He was a prosperous man of business happy in his home, always ready to take part in the social and political life of his native town. A founder of the Rochdale Literary and Philosophical Society, he took a leading part in its debates, on returning from a holiday journey in the east, gave the society a lecture on his travels, he first met Richard Cobden in 1836 or 1837. Cobden was an alderman of the newly formed Manchester Corporation, Bright went to ask him to speak at an education meeting in Rochdale.
Cobden consented, at the meeting was much struck by Bright's short speech, urged him to speak against the Corn Laws. His first speech on the Corn Laws was made at Rochdale in 1838, in the same year he joined the Manchester provisional committee which in 1839 founded the Anti-Corn Law
Lodève
Lodève is a commune in the Hérault département in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department; the derivation of the city's name is from Gaulish Luteva, composed of lut-, mud + suffix -eva. It might therefore translate as the swamp city. Lodève lies where the plains rise up to the Larzac plateau, 54 km from Montpellier, in the valley of the Lergue river where that river is joined by the smaller Soulondre, it is surrounded by green hills and vineyards and lies only 8 km from the large man-made Lac du Salagou. Lodève enjoys a mediterranean climate, with the hot summers that allow plentiful viticulture. Violent storms and torrential rain are seen in late summer, leading to flooding and the muds and swamps that gave the city its name. Lodève started as the capital of a tribe of the Volcae, the Lutevani, before becoming the Roman city Luteva; the town was a stopping point on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela via the Arles road. An episcopal city until the French Revolution, it was a centre for textile production under Louis XV and was home to one of only two royal manufactories for tapestry, the other being the one of the Gobelins in Paris.
More the area was the centre of a firm resistance against the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. Lodève Cathedral Cathédrale Saint-Fulcran de Lodève), parts of which date from the sixth century. Museum Fleury. Halle Dardé, dedicated to local sculptor Paul Dardé. L'Atelier national du tapis de Lodève, the French state carpet-making workshop. In the vicinity: Cave: Grotte de Labeil. Saint-Michel de Grandmont Priory and its dolmen. Lerab Ling: Buddhist Temple in traditional Tibetan form. Throughout the year, the town hosts a varied programme of festivities and events both cultural and sporting, as well as all sorts of markets which are always well worth a visit. In recent years, the Museum Art Gallery has gained national acclaim for its major art exhibitions; the "Voix de la Méditerranée" poetry festival, established in 1998 takes place every July for around 9 days. Poets and writers come from many different countries on the Mediterranean to share their culture through poetry readings and other cultural events.
This is considered a special festival for poetry and is enjoyable for all. The annual "Fête de St. Fulcran", the patron saint of the town takes place in May and includes the procession of the saint's relics and a funfair. Lodève has a large Algerian population, the first generation of which fought for the French and were housed here after the Algerian Civil War; the town lies on the A75 autoroute about 30 minutes south of the new Millau viaduct, the highest bridge in the world. Lodève was the birthplace of: André-Hercule de Fleury a cardinal who served as the chief minister of Louis XV, the museum is named after him. Georges Auric, composer Paul Dardé, the middle school is named after him. Joseph Vallot, the highschool is named after this alpinist who installed an observatory in the Alps; the town houses a famous carpet-manufacturing company, part of the national Savonnerie, which once supplied large, exquisite carpets to the French royal family, still today produces hand made carpets for State buildings.
Viticulture, focussed on the Carignan grape variety, is a major industry. The climate is favourable for fruit production, the region's peaches, apricots and tomatoes are prized. Lodève is twinned with Moorthorpe, UK and Gjakova, Kosovo. Bishopric of Lodéve Communes of the Hérault department INSEE This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "article name needed". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. GigaCatholic Tourist office website Voix de la Méditerranée website
Richard Cobden
Richard Cobden was an English manufacturer and Liberal statesman, associated with two major free trade campaigns, the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty. As a young man, Cobden was a successful commercial traveller who became co-owner of a profitable calico printing factory in Sabden but lived in Manchester, a city with which he would become identified. However, he soon found himself more engaged in politics, his travels convinced him of the virtues of free trade as the key to better international relations. In 1838, he and John Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners’ interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread; as a Member of Parliament from 1841, he fought against opposition from the Peel ministry, abolition was achieved in 1846. Another free trade initiative was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France; this campaign was conducted in collaboration with John Bright and French economist Michel Chevalier, succeeded despite Parliament’s endemic mistrust of the French.
Cobden was born at a farmhouse called Dunford, in Heyshott near Midhurst, in Sussex. He was the fourth of eleven children born to his wife Millicent, his family had been resident in that neighbourhood for many generations, occupied in trade and in agriculture. His grandfather Richard Cobden owned Bex Mill in Heyshott and was an energetic and prosperous maltster who served as bailiff and chief magistrate at Midhurst and took rather a notable part in county matters, his father William however forsook malting in favour of farming, taking over the running of Dunford Farm when Richard died in 1809. A poor business man, he sold the property when the farm failed and moved the family to a smaller farm at nearby Gullard’s Oak. Conditions did not improve and by 1814, after several more moves, the family settled as tenant farmers in West Meon, near Alton in Hampshire. Cobden attended a dame school and Bowes Hall School in Teesdale, County Durham; when fifteen years of age he went to London to the warehouse business of his uncle Richard Ware Cole where he became a commercial traveller in muslin and calico.
His relative, noting the lad's passionate addiction to study, solemnly warned him against indulging such a taste, as to prove a fatal obstacle to his success in commercial life. Cobden was made good use of the library of the London Institution; when his uncle's business failed, he joined that of Partridge & Price, in Eastcheap, one of the partners being his uncle's former partner. In 1828, Cobden set up his own business with Sheriff and Gillet with capital from John Lewis, acting as London agents for Fort Brothers, Manchester calico printers. In 1831, the partners sought to lease a factory from Fort's at Sabden, near Lancashire, they had, insufficient capital between them. Cobden and his colleagues so impressed Fort's that they consented to retain a substantial proportion of the equity; the new firm prospered and soon had three establishments – the printing works at Sabden and sales outlets in London and Manchester. The Manchester outlet came under the direct management of Cobden, who settled there in 1832, beginning a long association with the city.
He lived in a house on Quay Street, now called Cobden House. A plaque commemorates his residency; the success of the enterprise was decisive and rapid, the "Cobden prints" soon became well known for their quality. Had Cobden devoted all his energies to the business, he might soon have become wealthy, his earnings in the business were £8,000 to £10,000 a year. However, his lifelong habit of learning and inquiry absorbed much of his time. Writing under the byname Libra, he published many letters in the Manchester Times discussing commercial and economic questions; some of his ideas were influenced by Adam Smith. In 1835 he published his first pamphlet, entitled England and America, by a Manchester Manufacturer. Cobden advocated the principles of peace, non-intervention and free trade to which he continued faithful, he paid a visit to the United States, landing in New York on 7 June 1835. He devoted about three months to this tour, passing through the seaboard states and the adjacent portion of Canada, collecting as he went large stores of information respecting the condition and prospects of the nation.
Another work appeared under the title of Russia. It was designed to combat a wild outbreak of Russophobia inspired by David Urquhart, it contained a bold indictment of the whole system of foreign policy founded on ideas of the balance of power and the necessity of large armaments for the protection of commerce. Bad health obliged him to leave Britain, for several months, at the end of 1836 and the beginning of 1837, he travelled in Spain and Egypt. During his visit to Egypt he had an interview with Muhammad Ali, of whose character as a reforming monarch he did not bring away a favourable impression, he returned to Britain in April 1837. Cobden soon became a conspicuous figure in Manchester intellectual life, he delivered its inaugural address. He was a member of the chamber of commerce and was part of the campaign for the incorporation of the city, being elected one of its first aldermen, he began to take a warm interest in the cause of popular education. Some of his first attempts in public speaking were at meetings which he convened at Manchester, Bolton and other adjacent towns, to advocate the establishment
Thomas Gamaliel Bradford
Thomas Gamaliel Bradford was an American cartographer. Bradford was born in 1802 in Massachusetts, he worked for the America Encyclopedia. He revised and republished Atlas Designed to Illustrate the Abridgement of Universal Geography, Modern & Ancient, created by Adrian Balbi. In 1835, he published A Comprehensive Atlas: Historical & Commercial, his work is held in the collection of the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library
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