Although freedom is generally recognized as desirable, many people regard it only as a value that must sometimes be sacrificed to "necessity." Consequently, they often express support for a society in which people would be "basically" free, but in which the "public interest" would occasionally take precedence over individual rights. Here we shall examine the long-run practical operations of such a mixed economy. Initially, this analysis assumes, the society is governed by a popular constitutional government. Many private-property rights are recognized and most functions are served through the marketplace, but the government encroaches significantly upon that marketplace through interventions similar to those studied in Subsection 4.11. In order to grasp this analysis mentally, we will need to divide it into sectors, presented as four graphs:
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