What was Carlyle's attitude toward the 'Laissez-faire' economic school of thought popularized by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill?
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Correct answer: He dismissed it as a cruel 'Dismal Science' abandoning the weak to supply and demand.
Carlyle famously dubbed economics the 'dismal science' because its contemporary professors advocated for a total lack of state intervention in social distress. He argued that laissez-faire (or 'let-alone' policy) was a complete abdication of governance, leaving desperate human beings to starve under the cold laws of supply and demand while rich industrialists accumulated untaxed fortunes.
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