Is anything in life really FREE?

“TANSTAAFL - "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".

I first read this in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, a 1966 novel by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. In this novel there is discussion concerning the problems caused by not considering the eventual outcome of an unbalanced economy. The phrase refers to the once-common tradition of saloons in the United States providing a “free lunch” to patrons, who were required to buy at least one drink. TANSTAAFL means that you or society cannot get something for nothing. Even when something looks like it is free, there is a cost that someone or a group has to pay even though that cost may not be visible or spread through the group You may get free food at a bar during happy hour but the owner must recover that expense somehow, perhaps by charging slightly more for drinks or other food, even if you never buy those drinks or anything else, someone is paying or the bar will go out of business. Depending on the definition of free, TANSTAAFL may not always be true at the individual level. Some may argue that mothers give their children love at no cost. But that love is only produced through the efforts (cost) used to produce the child and sustain the mother, so even though the cost is not paid by the children themselves, it is paid by someone. Therefore, if it looks like one individual is getting something free, someone ends up paying for it. When there appears to be no direct cost to an individual, there is a price being paid by the group. Someone can benefit for free from a group or society but someone has to pay the cost of producing these benefits.”