TANSTAAFL
Encyclopedia
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (alternatively, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL and TINSTAAFL are also used. Uses of the phrase dating back to the 1930s and 1940s have been found, but the phrase's first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the nineteenth century practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch
Free lunch
The phrase free lunch, in U.S. literature from about 1870 to 1920, refers to a tradition once common in saloons in many places in the United States. These establishments included a "free" lunch, varying from rudimentary to quite elaborate, with the purchase of at least one drink. These free lunches...

" as a way to entice drinking customers. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert Heinlein's 1966 libertarian science fiction
Libertarian science fiction
Libertarian science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that focuses on the politics and social order implied by libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and a limited state-- and in some cases, no state whatsoever....

 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth....

, which popularized it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...

 also popularized the phrase by using it as the title of a 1975 book, and it often appears in economics textbooks; Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is "at the core of economics".

“Free lunch”

The “free lunch” referred to in the acronym relates back to the once-common tradition of saloons in the United States providing a "free" lunch
Free lunch
The phrase free lunch, in U.S. literature from about 1870 to 1920, refers to a tradition once common in saloons in many places in the United States. These establishments included a "free" lunch, varying from rudimentary to quite elaborate, with the purchase of at least one drink. These free lunches...

 to patrons who had purchased at least one drink. All the foods on offer were high in salt (e.g. ham, cheese and salted crackers) so those who ate them ended up buying a lot of beer. Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, writing in 1891, noted how he came upon a bar room full of bad Salon pictures, in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter.
“It was the institution of the 'free lunch' I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee
Rupee
The rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and formerly in Burma, and Afghanistan. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century...

 a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts.”


TANSTAAFL, on the other hand, indicates an acknowledgment 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 even though that cost may be hidden or distributed
Externality
In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices, incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit...

. For example, as Heinlein has one of his characters point out, a bar offering a free lunch will likely charge more for its drinks.

Early uses

According to Robert Caro
Robert Caro
Robert Allan Caro is an American journalist and author known for his celebrated biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson...

, Fiorello La Guardia, on becoming mayor of New York in 1934, said "È finita la cuccagna!", meaning "No more free lunch"; in this context "free lunch" refers to graft and corruption. The earliest known occurrence of the full phrase, in the form "There ain’t no such thing as free lunch", appears as the punchline of a joke related in an article in the El Paso Herald-Post of June 27, 1938, entitled "Economics in Eight Words". In 1945 "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" appeared in the Columbia Law Review
Columbia Law Review
The Columbia Law Review is a law review edited and published by students at Columbia Law School. In addition to articles, the journal regularly publishes scholarly essays and student notes. It was founded in 1901 by Joseph E. Corrigan and John M. Woolsey, who served as the review's first...

, and "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. Rukeyser.
In 1949 the phrase appeared in an article by Walter Morrow in the San Francisco News (published on 1 June) and in Pierre Dos Utt's monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

, "TANSTAAFL: a plan for a new economic world order", which describes an oligarchic political system based on his conclusions from "no free lunch" principles.

The 1938 and 1949 sources use the phrase in relating a fable about a king (Nebuchadrezzar in Dos Utt's retelling) seeking advice from his economic advisors. Morrow's retelling, which claims to derive from an earlier editorial reported to be non-existent, but closely follows the story as related in the earlier article in the El Paso Herald-Post, differs from Dos Utt's in that the ruler asks for ever-simplified advice following their original "eighty-seven volumes of six hundred pages" as opposed to a simple failure to agree on "any major remedy". The last surviving economist advises that "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".

In 1950, a New York Times columnist ascribed the phrase to economist (and Army General) Leonard P. Ayres
Leonard Porter Ayres
Leonard Porter Ayres was an American educator, soldier, and statistician.-Biography:Ayres was born at Niantic, Conn. He received his college and graduate training at Boston, Harvard, and Columbia universities....

 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 gathered from long years of economic study... 'It is an immutable economic fact,' said the general, 'that there is no such thing as a free lunch.'"

Meanings

TANSTAAFL demonstrates opportunity cost
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the best alternative that is not chosen . It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. The opportunity cost is also the...

. Greg Mankiw
N. Gregory Mankiw
Nicholas Gregory "Greg" Mankiw is an American macroeconomist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Mankiw is known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics....

 described the concept as: "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." 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 utilisation of resources. If one individual or group gets something at no cost, somebody else ends up paying for it. If there appears to be no direct cost to any single individual, there is a social cost
Social cost
Social cost, in economics, is generally defined in opposition to "private cost". In economics, theorists model individual decision-making as measurement of costs and benefits...

. Similarly, someone can benefit for "free" from an externality
Externality
In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices, incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit...

 or from a public good
Public good
In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rival and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability means that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good...

, but someone has to pay the cost of producing these benefits.

In the sciences, TANSTAAFL means that the universe as a whole is ultimately a closed system—there is no magic source of matter, energy, light, or indeed lunch, that does not draw resources from something else, and will not eventually be exhausted. Therefore the TANSTAAFL 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). (See Second law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...

.) The bio-ecologist Barry Commoner
Barry Commoner
Barry Commoner is an American biologist, college professor, and eco-socialist. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 US presidential election on the Citizens Party ticket. He was also editor of Science Illustrated magazine.-Biography:Commoner was born in Brooklyn...

 used this concept as the last of his famous "Four Laws of Ecology".

In mathematical finance
Mathematical finance
Mathematical finance is a field of applied mathematics, concerned with financial markets. The subject has a close relationship with the discipline of financial economics, which is concerned with much of the underlying theory. Generally, mathematical finance will derive and extend the mathematical...

, the term is also used as an informal synonym for the principle of no-arbitrage
Arbitrage
In economics and finance, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets: striking a combination of matching deals that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices...

. This principle states that a combination of securities that has the same cash flows as another security must have the same net price in equilibrium.

TANSTAAFL is sometimes used as a response to claims of the virtues of free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

. Supporters of free software often counter that the use of the term "free" in this context is primarily a reference to a lack of constraint ("libre") rather than a lack of cost ("gratis
Gratis
Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"...

"). Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...

 has described it as "free as in speech not as in beer".

The prefix "TANSTAA-" is used in numerous other contexts as well to denote some immutable property of the system being discussed. For example, "TANSTAANFS" is used by Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 professors to stand for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Noise Free System".

See also

  • No free lunch in search and optimization
  • No-arbitrage bounds
    No-arbitrage bounds
    In financial mathematics, no-arbitrage bounds are mathematical relationships specifying limits on financial portfolio prices. These price bounds are a specific example of good-deal bounds, and are in fact the greatest extremes for good-deal bounds....

     – mathematical relationships specifying simple limits on derivative prices
  • Parable of the broken window
    Parable of the broken window
    The parable of the broken window was introduced by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is actually not a net-benefit to society...

     – story by Frédéric Bastiat written to illuminate the notion of hidden costs
  • Science fiction fandom
    Science fiction fandom
    Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...

  • Tanstagi – There Ain't No Such Thing As Government Interference in the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy
    Schrödinger's Cat trilogy
    The Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy is a trilogy of novels by Robert Anton Wilson consisting of The Universe Next Door, The Trick Top Hat, and The Homing Pigeons, each illustrating a different interpretation of quantum physics...

  • Tragedy of the commons
    Tragedy of the commons
    The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...

  • Free rider problem
    Free rider problem
    In economics, collective bargaining, psychology, and political science, a free rider is someone who consumes a resource without paying for it, or pays less than the full cost. The free rider problem is the question of how to limit free riding...

  • Zero-sum game
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