Mixed economy can also refer to socialist economies with a substantial role for non-social or non-public forms of ownership in the means of production, or to Soviet-type planned economies that have been reformed to allow a greater role for market forces.
Market Economy economies can make up a mixed economy
mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of market economies with elements of planned economies, free markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise.[1] There is not only one definition of a mixed economy,[2] but rather two major definitions recognized for a "mixed economy". The first of these definitions refers to a mixture of markets with state interventionism, referring to capitalist market economies with strong regulatory oversight, interventionist policies and governmental provision of public services. The second definition is apolitical in nature and strictly refers to an economy containing a mixture of private enterprise with public enterprise.[3]
In most cases and particularly with reference to Western economies, a mixed economy refers to a capitalist economy characterized by the predominance of private ownership of the means of production with profit-seeking enterprise and the accumulation of capital as its fundamental driving force. In this system, markets are subject to varying degrees of regulatory control and governments wield indirect macroeconomic influence through fiscal and monetary policies designed to counteract capitalism’s history of boom/bust cycles, unemployment and income disparities. In this framework, varying degrees of public utilities and essential services are under public ownership and state activity is often limited to providing public goods and universal civic requirements like healthcare, physical infrastructure and management of public lands.[4][5]
In reference to post-war Western and Northern European economic models as championed by Christian democrats and social democrats, the mixed economy is defined as a form of capitalism where most industries are privately owned with only a small number of public utilities and essential services under public ownership. In the post-war era, European social democracy became associated with this economic model.[6] As an economic ideal, mixed economies are supported by people of various political persuasions, typically centre-left and centre-right, such as social democrats[7] or Christian democrats.
