Looking through Belgrave's economic dictionary, we can see that there is a "free lunch". After careful reading, I can't help but realize that the article about "free lunch" written by the author earlier has endless disadvantages. In fact, it is the pleasure of reading to constantly discover new materials or inspire new ideas.
In Hong Kong, "free lunch" is a household word. The author can be said to be the first media person to introduce this word into Hong Kong. The author, like ordinary people and even people in ivory towers, has always thought that this wise saying was "cast" by Friedman, a master of monetary school. 1In mid-June, 1997, when Fleming went to Israel to receive an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he had a good talk with the Chairman of the Finance and Economic Committee of the Knesset, Runian Weiss. Lu Niansi said that Judaism can be summed up in eight words: "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you", and the rest are secondary. He asked Friedman to sum up the essence of his economics in a simple sentence. Friedman blurted out: "There is no free lunch in the world-this is the whole of my economic theory, and the rest is just a side issue!" " Fu Limin's works are profound and knowledgeable, but he summed up his theory with these simple words, which shows the profound meaning of this sentence.
In fact, before this, "free lunch" was Fleming's "signature commodity". His collection of essays "An Economist's Protest" published in 1972 was reprinted in 1975 and renamed as "There is no such thing as a free lunch". All of the above leads me to the conclusion that this sentence was "invented" by Friedman.
Recently, however, after reading Economic Governance by David Boyun, a professor of political science at Columbia University (published by Princeton University Press), I found that this sentence was originally written by political scholar Duran. In a paper published in 197 1, he put forward two principles. One is "there is no such thing as a free lunch principle"; The second is "there is no impeccable influence principle in the world".
At this point, we should know that "free lunch" was not created by Friedman. However, Fleming's reputation was abroad, and Duran had to give way. In fact, Friedman is indispensable for the popularization of this "principle".
As we all know, any goods and services below the market price in society are subsidized by the government with taxpayers' money-the "general public" who enjoy the "free lunch" also contribute because of indirect taxes-and because the administrative cost of issuing the "free lunch" is particularly high, the "free lunch" is actually very expensive!
However, according to the textual research of the author who wrote the word "free lunch" for Belgrave, the word "free lunch" first appeared in19th century. At that time, in order to attract customers and "provide free sandwiches and snacks", bars and inns posted advertisements outside their doors. But if customers only eat sandwiches and don't get drunk, they will soon find that they can't understand the advertisement literally. As long as sandwiches don't buy drinks, everyone is thrown out without exception. Obviously, "no free sandwich" is the "predecessor" of "no free lunch".
The formal use of the word "free lunch" began in 1933 during the New Deal in the United States and was created by conservative politicians and critics. For example, Ken, a famous critic, and Henry Harriet, a famous economic critic, wrote "Introduction to Economics". In their works, they used "free lunch" many times to describe social welfare undertakings, so as to illustrate that welfare is actually very expensive. As we all know, the government itself cannot create wealth, and government expenditure must be obtained by collecting taxes. In other words, the sources of funds for the government to implement welfare policies are all donations from taxpayers, and the implementation of welfare policies has formed a huge government structure, which is the fundamental reason for the high cost of free welfare.
During the Vietnam War, people who advocated compulsory conscription thought that school-age students were obliged to apply, which was a reward for their free education. "There is no such thing as a free lunch" is a reality that students who receive free education and think that education is really free should accept.
After the Vietnam War, the word "free lunch" gradually became notorious. In the early 1970s, it was popular to print a fashionable slogan on T-shirts, and the phrase "free lunch" gradually attracted the attention of businessmen. However, if Friedman hadn't repeatedly analyzed in the column of Newsweek, there is no such thing as a "free lunch", and it wouldn't be so popular.
These are all my understanding of "free lunch" so far. If you find something new in the future, please report it to you immediately. ■
Upload time: August, 2003/17 Article Source: Finance and Economics This article is organized by Legal Thought Network. Please indicate the source for reprinting.