TANSTAAFL!
Many libertarians and other freedom-loving SF fans know that term well. For those who don’t recall, it’s an acronym for “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.”
The Grand Master SF writer Robert Heinlein did his share to popularize the acronym in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. His bestselling, Hugo-winning novel, about a libertarian revolution on the Moon, was one of the first works inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
So did free-market economist and classical liberal Milton Friedman, who often quoted it over the years.
Both libertarians used the acronym to communicate the idea that nothing is truly free, and there’s always a cost to any decision.
But did the popular catchphrase inadvertently also spread a misunderstanding about economics?
Leading libertarian thinker David Friedman, who happens to be Milton’s son, makes that point in a post on his Substack column.
“Tanstaafl… is a popular slogan with, among others, libertarians. I do not know where it originated but it was popularized by Robert Heinlein, who used it in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. My father eventually stopped using it on the grounds that it was not true,” Friedman wrote.
Friedman, an economist who specializes in the relationship of law and economics, illustrates his point by considering the nearly universal but under appreciated phenomenon of “consumer surplus,” in which most consumers gain whenever they buy something at a price less than what they’re willing to pay.
“If I buy a 2 liter bottle of Coke Zero for two dollars when I would have been willing to pay four, I have gained two dollars of consumer surplus. That is the value to me of the opportunity to buy that product at that price which, unlike the Coke Zero, I did not pay for, hence a free lunch,” Friedman writes.
“If I give a talk for a thousand dollars which I would have been willing to give for four hundred that is producer surplus, a gain to me of six hundred dollars due to the existence of someone who valued my talk at a thousand. I did not pay anything to have him exist. A free market society is, in that sense, full of free lunches.”
His conclusion?
“My father replaced Tanstaafl with “Always look a gift horse in the mouth.” Free lunches exist but the claim that something is a free lunch should be viewed with suspicion.”
Even if David’s argument is correct (and I don’t doubt it), I’d argue that the use of TANSTAAFL by libertarians and others can remain useful and illuminating in the cause of freedom. After all, the central lesson that every decision (or action, or product or program or policy) comes with various costs and trade-offs remains valid.
For instance, that valuable reminder of a basic fact of reality is explored in Marginal Revolution University’s Principles of Economics series.
“If your favorite bakery advertises free cupcakes, are they really free? You need consider the time it takes you to drive to the bakery, wait in line, etc. These are the “costs” of the seemingly free cupcakes,” the MRU website explains.
“TANSTAAFL can also help explain why “fun” jobs pay lower wages than “boring” jobs. Would you rather be a sewer inspector spending your days underground or a lifeguard on the beach? Most would say that being a lifeguard is a more fun job, but a sewer inspector has higher wages to attract workers and to compensate for the not-so-fun aspects of the job. For jobs requiring equal skill and education, more fun = lower wages, and less fun = higher wages.”
To learn more, see the MRU video on TANSTAAFL.
The mission of MRU, founded in 2012 by economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrock and featuring instructors like 2021 Nobel Laureate Josh Angrist, suggests that more teachers and freedom-lovers should check it out, so they and others can learn more about economics.
The goal of MRU, a nonprofit project housed at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, is “to give everyone, everywhere free access to a world-class economic education.”
* Read the Prometheus Blog appreciation of Heinlein’s novel, a 1983 Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee for Best Classic Fiction.
* Check out other articles about Economics and Science Fiction, an indexed category on the Prometheus Blog.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
