Advocates of a mixed economy contend that it can provide the "best of both worlds," combining the efficiency and productivity of a free-market system with the supposed "social consciousness" and "rational planning" of socialism. Such a system inherently requires the acceptance of mutually opposing principles, namely, capitalism and socialism. If such a system has acquired social acceptance, consequently, it is no longer possible to uphold either principle on purely moral grounds. Hence the dominance of one principle or the other from moment to moment is determined by a pragmatic political process, to be examined in great detail later.

While the basic objective of government in capitalism is to maintain freedom, and the objective of a socialist state is to promote the "good of society" (as defined by authorities), some governments may neither support nor pretend to support either of these objectives. The underlying purpose of a personal dictatorship (cf. pp. 5.2:67-9) is simply to advance the ends of its ruler(s). In modern times, such dictatorships typically evolve, for reasons to be explored in detail later, either from socialist (or fascist) states or from mixed-economy systems.