ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the view of Sima Qian as an advocate of a laissez-faire economic system in which individuals as consumers, producers and distributors are given unrestricted scope to relieve their desires through the pursuit of material wealth and profit, with resources allocated in response to price signals rather than state directives. The laissez-faire reading of the passage is that the "highest type of ruler" will accept the reality of people's multiple desires and will endorse an economic system based on their unhindered efforts to satisfy those desires, both as consumers and as suppliers. There are several indications within Shiji 121 itself that the apparently favourable treatment of an economic system driven by the unrestrained desire for wealth is deceptive. According to the "free market" or "laissez-faire " interpretation of the opening paragraphs of Shiji 129, Sima Qian accepted that people were driven to satisfy their various desires and commended a ruler who would allow them to do so.
