TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the adage "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", popularized by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which discusses the problems caused by not considering the eventual outcome of an unbalanced economy.

TANSTAAFL means that 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. For example, you may get free food at a bar during "happy hour", but the bar-owner must recover that marketing expense somehow, perhaps by charging slightly more for drinks or other food, and even if you personally never buy those drinks or that other food, someone else has to or the bar will go out of business.

It is thought that TANSTAAFL may not always hold at the individual level, depending on the interpretation of the phrase; for example, some may argue that mothers often provide their children with lunch at no cost. But that food still had to be produced by someone somewhere, so even though the cost isn't paid by the children themselves, it is still paid by someone.

Hence, it seems that if one individual is getting 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. 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. But when inefficiency exists, one can get a "free lunch". For example, microeconomics argues that the production of pollution may be inefficient because the polluters are not forced to pay for the damage they cause. A tax or other program that forces the polluter to internalize this externality would improve efficiency, increasing social welfare. In practice, however, others who are benefiting from the inefficiency will use their political or social power to prevent this tax. That is, the polluter may use lobbying and campaign contributions to preserve his or her ability to freely pollute.

Remember members for all good things we have to pay the price.

Full article could be read at : http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/TANSTAAFL

Prof.Lakshman Madurasinghe