Dirigisme (), or dirigism (), refers to an economic system in which the state takes an active and directive role in shaping and guiding the economy, rather than limiting itself to a purely regulatory or hands-off approach within a market economy. As an economic doctrine, dirigisme stands in contrast to laissez-faire, highlighting the constructive role of market intervention in addressing inefficiencies and market failures. Dirigiste policies typically include indicative planning, state-guided investment, and the strategic use of market instruments such as taxes and subsidies to encourage econo
Dirigisme (), or dirigism (), refers to an economic system in which the state takes an active and directive role in shaping and guiding the economy, rather than limiting itself to a purely regulatory or hands-off approach within a market economy. As an economic doctrine, dirigisme stands in contrast to laissez-faire, highlighting the constructive role of market intervention in addressing inefficiencies and market failures. Dirigiste policies typically include indicative planning, state-guided investment, and the strategic use of market instruments such as taxes and subsidies to encourage economic actors to align with national development goals. Dirigisme is not synonymous with a state-controlled command economy but a market economy and big public sector is required for dirigisme; hence the public sector becomes an instrument for altering the market.
The term emerged in the post–World War II era to describe the economic policies of France which included substantial state-directed investment, the use of indicative economic planning to supplement the market mechanism and the establishment of state enterprises in strategic domestic sectors. It coincided with both the period of substantial economic and demographic growth, known as the Trente Glorieuses which followed the war, and the slowdown beginning with the 1973 oil crisis.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).