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There are plenty of free lunches, they're called externalities, free rider problems, etc., etc. For a maxim held by so many who flirt with economics, it's stra
by AaronFriel 10y ago
There are plenty of free lunches, they're called externalities, free rider problems, etc., etc.
For a maxim held by so many who flirt with economics, it's strange that so much of the field is explicitly about determining where the free lunches are.
- closeparen 10y agoThe point of TANSTAAFL isn't that you'll never eat for free. It's that someone pays for your lunch. In an externality, someone pays for your lunch involuntarily.
- AaronFriel 10y agoAnd I don't think that makes it any more relevant as a maxim here. Social safety nets, welfare, and UBI are all giving lunches to people. Sometimes they produce net benefits, sometimes not. Throwing in TANSTAAFL doesn't add anything to the discussion.
- closeparen 10y agoUBI represents a massive increase in the level of redistribution proposed, so it's important to remember that it is redistribution and the money will have to come from somewhere.
- paulddraper 10y agoI think you're being willfully ignorant. The point is that every lunch is non-free to some people, even if it is free to others. You might thing it trite or a truism, but very many people forget that the billions/trillions for UBI is going to be very expensive for a lot of people.