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The proverb "There is no such thing as a free lunch," often abbreviated as TANSTAAFL, communicates the enduring idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The expression can also be found as "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," "No such thing as a free lunch," or simply "No free lunch." At its core, the proverb reflects the underlying economic and philosophical reality that every good or service comes with a cost, whether direct, hidden, or dispersed across a group or society.
Before discussing the origin of 'there’s no such thing as a free lunch' it would be useful to go back to the days in which lunches were free. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many saloons in the United States offered a midday buffet selection of gratis food to customers who purchased at least one drink. The saloonkeepers hoped to increase the number of clients and the amount of alcohol purchased. Most people love a bargain or a good deal. Free lunch was a commonplace term in the USA and, to a lesser extent in Britain, from the mid 19th century onward. Free lunches, often cold food but sometimes quite elaborate affairs, were provided for anyone who bought drink. N. B. This inducement wasn’t popular with the temperance lobby and was also criticized for the same reason that others in the 20th century later introduced the TANSTAAFL idea to economic thinking, that is, saloon customers always ended up paying for the food in the price of the drinks they were obliged to consume.
Some quotes exist from the time, arguing that these free lunches were not really free, such as in the Columbia Daily Phoenix of 1873: "One of the most expensive things in this city-Free lunch.", L. A. W. Bulletin 1897: "If no one ever paid for drinks, there would be no 'free lunch', and the man who confines his attention to the free lunch, alone, is getting what he knows others pay for." and the Washington Herald 1909: "as a matter of fact, there is no such thing as free lunch. Somebody has to pay for it." When Chicago attempted to ban free lunches in 1917, Michael Montague, a saloon owner, made the case that "There is no such thing as free lunch. First of all, you have to buy something from the saloonkeeper before you can partake of the lunch."
It was into this context that the economic theorists enter the fray and ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ is coined. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert A. The earliest known use of the phrase in its current sense is as the punchline of the story "Economics in Eight Words" in Herman Fetzer's "Pippins and Cheese" column in The Cleveland Press on May 4, 1933. The story is a fable about a king who hired four hundred economists to write an outline of economics. "Economics in Eight Words" was rewritten by newspaper editor Walter Morrow, and published under the same title in The Birmingham Post on June 24, 1938, and other Scripps-Howard newspapers around that time.
In 1942, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (with the word "a" before "free lunch") appeared in Public Utilities Fortnightly, and the Columbia Law Review in 1945. A shortened version of the phrase, "there is no free lunch" appeared in a 1942 article in the Oelwein Daily Register (in a quote attributed to economist Harley L. Lutz) and in a 1947 column by economist Merryle S. In 1950, a New York Times columnist ascribed the phrase to economist (and army general) Leonard P. Ayres of the Cleveland Trust Company: "It seems that shortly before the General's death [in 1946]... a group of reporters approached the general with the request that perhaps he might give them one of several immutable economic truisms that he had gathered from his long years of economic study... By the late 1960s, the phrase had also been given the name "Crane's law", for example in an article by Henry D."
Jazykové nuance: zadarmo vs. zdarma
In 1966, author Robert A. Heinlein published his novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, in which TANSTAAFL was a central, libertarian theme, mentioned by name and explained. The 'there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch' version of the phrase is often reduced to the acronym TANSTAAFL. This is widely associated with the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. He did use the term several times in his 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but the coinage of the acronym pre-dates that by at least a quarter of a century.
The prominent economist Milton Friedman and the famous science fiction author Robert Heinlein both employed this expression, but I do not believe that either one coined it. Prof. Friedman once wrote that the one big truth in economics is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In 1975, Milton Friedman used an instance as the title of a book: "There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch."
TANSTAAFL, on the other hand, applies this more generally, and indicates an acknowledgement that in reality a person or a society cannot get "something for nothing". Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole, although that may be a hidden cost or an externality. Therefore, the no free lunch argument may also be applied to natural physical processes in a closed system (either the universe as a whole, or any system that does not receive energy or matter from outside). In economics, no free lunch demonstrates opportunity cost.
Greg Mankiw described the concept as follows: "To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another." What Does the Concept of There Being No Such Thing as a Free Lunch Have to do with Free Access to Legal Information? A lot. In this Information Age, people often create and get information on the Internet. There is even an entire movement dedicated to accessing law free of charge, the Free Access to Law Movement. However, if people are not exchanging money for a service, they are often exchanging time or information for a service.
People can get legal information free of charge all over the Internet with varying degrees of accuracy and currency. If there appears to be no direct cost to any single individual, there is a social cost. Similarly, someone can benefit for "free" from an externality or from a public good, but someone has to pay the cost of producing these benefits. The idea that there is no free lunch at the societal level applies only when all resources are being used completely and appropriately - i.e., when economic efficiency prevails. If not, a 'free lunch' can be had through a more efficient utilization of resources.
Or, as Fred Brooks put it, "You can only get something for nothing if you have previously gotten nothing for something." If one individual or group gets something at no cost, somebody else ends up paying for it.
In the sciences, no free lunch means that the universe as a whole is ultimately a closed system. There is no source of matter, energy, or light that draws resources from something else which will not eventually be exhausted. Thus, the economic maxim evolved from literal instances of the saying that were applied to the “free lunch” service provided by saloons in the nineteenth century.
In mathematical finance, the term is also used as an informal synonym for the principle of no-arbitrage. In statistics, the term has been used to describe the tradeoffs of statistical learners (e.g., in machine learning) which are unavoidable according to the "No free lunch" theorem.
| Domain | Implication of "No Free Lunch" | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Economics | Opportunity cost must be considered; every choice has a price. | If a government subsidizes education, someone pays via taxes. |
| Science | Resources cannot come from nothing; closed systems are limited. | Energy cannot be created or destroyed (First Law of Thermodynamics). |
| Technology (Internet) | Service may be free, but users pay with data or exposure to ads. | "Free" social media platform earns revenue from user data. |
| Law & Information | Legal information may be free, but may cost users accuracy or privacy. | Accessing court databases without a fee, but giving up personal data. |
As language has evolved, the proverb "There is no such thing as a free lunch" has taken its place as a pithy yet powerful reminder-across disciplines-that cost, in some form, is inescapable.
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