在我国“市场经济”作为一种基本理念可以说已经深入人心,但人们对经济自由与法治、民主之间关系的认识还是非常模糊。市场经济的本质是自由经济,理想状态下的市场经济的显著特征是市场主体分散决策、自愿交易,市场主体根据市场价格自主决定资源的配置,在这一过程中不允许存在一方对另一方的强制,就此而言市场里发生的经济活动是属于“私人领域”里的事,这也就是密尔曾经在《论自由》里阐释过的,自由就是从事一切对别人没有害处的活动的权利,经济自由要求每个行为主体各自恪守自己的行为边界。但是,这种理想状态在现实中往往很难实现。经济活动追求的目标是获得更多的财富,一般认为可以通过两种途径来获得财富,一是生产更多的增量财富,其二是改变财富的最终分配。前者最常见 In our country, “market economy” as a basic concept can be said to have gained popular support, but people’s understanding of the relationship between economic freedom and the rule of law and democracy is still very vague. The essence of the market economy is a free economy. Under the ideal state, the salient features of the market economy are decentralized decision making by the market players, voluntary trading, and the market players’ autonomy in determining the allocation of resources according to market prices. In this process, Mandatory, for this reason, the economic activity that takes place in the market belongs to the “private sphere”, which is why Mill once explained in “On Freedom,” that freedom is to engage in activities that are not harmful to others Rights and economic freedom require each actor to abide by its own boundaries. However, this ideal state is often difficult to achieve in reality. The goal pursued by economic activity is to obtain more wealth. It is generally believed that wealth can be obtained in two ways. One is to produce more incremental wealth and the other is to change the ultimate distribution of wealth. The former is the most common