CLST 101 English Assessment

Questions 20 and 21. These questions are designed to test your reading comprehension skills on a basic and more advanced level. Read the passages below and mark the letter of the most correct answer. There are no trick questions. A free market describes a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud. The terminology is used by economists and in popular culture. A free market requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no single monetary system, and no governmental monopolies. It is the opposite of a controlled market, where the government regulates prices or how property is used. The theory holds that within the ideal free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer payments) and they engage in trade simply because they both consent and believe that what they are getting is worth more than or as much as what they give up. Price is the result of buying and selling decisions en masse as described by the law of supply and demand. Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants. Some free market advocates oppose taxation as well, claiming that the market is more efficient at providing all valuable services of which defense and law are no exception, that such services can be provided without direct taxation and that consent would be the basis of political legitimacy making it a morally consistent system. Answer True or False: I have read the above passage. Selected Answer: True