dirigisme means A policy of strong state control over the economy and related social matters. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 91 out of 100.
dirigisme is pronounced /ˈdɪɹɪʒɪz(ə)m/.
Why “dirigisme” is a great word
DIRIGISME — [Noun] An economic doctrine advocating comprehensive state direction of national economic and social affairs. From French *dirigisme*, from *diriger* ("to direct"), from Latin *dirigere* ("to direct, steer"). Unlike *laissez-faire*, which denotes a principled withdrawal of the state, or the broader *interventionism*, which implies selective corrections, dirigisme posits the state as the singular helmsman. It is the five-year plan drafted in a ministry’s hushed chambers, the subsidized factory producing precisely to quota, and the state-commissioned highway cutting through the untidy countryside—a testament to the tragic optimism that a society, like a ship, can be steered from a single bridge.
noun
- A policy of strong state control over the economy and related social matters.“These agents, for the same distributional and paternalistic reasons that motivated many of the socialist experiments in economic dirigisme, may seek to use political authority to modify, at least in part, the results of the market system.”