The view that unregulated private market activity produces the optimal economic and social outcome. Government activity, through monetary policy, fiscal policy, activities of a reserve bank, regulation, or other initiatives simply impedes the market’s progress towards the best possible result for everyone. Although the view is highly contestable, it has nevertheless achieved a kind of religious status in many financial quarters. In 1845 it led the UK government to suppose that it had no defensible option but to leave the Irish to starve during the potato famine in that country, since providing free or subsidized famine relief would be a kind of blasphemy against economic laws. However, in the crash of 2008 it proved easier for the financial industries to put the doctrine on hold when banks themselves needed massive state support. See also Hayek, Keynes, Say’s law.