Economic Interventionism

Economic interventionism (sometimes state interventionism) is an economic position favoring interventions in the market in the public interest on behalf of the government. An economic intervention is any action taken by a government or an international institution in a market economy or market-based mixed economy in an effort to impact the economy beyond the basic regulation of fraud and enforcement of contracts and provision of public goods. Economic intervention can be aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives, such as promoting economic growth, increasing employment, raising wages, raising or reducing prices, promoting equality, managing the money supply and interest rates, increasing profits, or addressing market failures.

The term intervention assumes, on a philosophical level, that the state and economy are separate spheres of activity from each other; therefore the terminology applies to capitalist market-based economies where government action interrupts the market forces at play through regulations, economic policies or subsidies in order to change market outcomes (although intervention does not apply to state-owned enterprises that operate in the market).

Economic planning in market economies is sometimes considered to be a form of intervention when it intervenes in the setting of prices and the distribution of goods determined by the market.