What Free Will Cost You

FREE! The ultimate attention grabber. After hundreds of years of sales research and experience, we have freebie marketing, freemiums, and free samples. Buy one, get one free. Free personal consultations. Free meal cards. Even free refills. But wait! There’s more! If you keep reading now, I’ll throw in even more unsolicited opinions absolutely free of charge!

All of this only proves what we already know: WE LOVE FREE STUFF!

Our infatuation with gratuities has reached an all-time high. Our pursuit of freebies guides our decision making in ways we hardly even notice. Someone flashes the promise of free-this or free-that, and we easily abandon rational thought and logic. Even freebies detrimental to our own health and wellbeing don’t deter us! Don’t believe me? Here’s some food for thought. Fresh of the run of a national bout of tainted meals and food poisoning, Chipotle Mexican Grill started a new campaign to win customers back. Their strategy was simple. “Text us the word ‘raincheck’ to 888-222 and get a free burrito.”

This food literally caused severe illness only a few weeks before, ruining the company’s image and disenfranchising their clientele.

“How stupid do they think we are?!” I jested with a contemptuous snort.

Shortly thereafter, I hit the send key on my phone and here I am still waiting for my free burrito voucher to be texted right back to me. Touché Chipotle… Touché.

We obsess over free stuff. Now that obsession is starting to make waves in the public arena. So many people cry for free-tuition, interest free loans, free health care, free birth control, free internet, free cell phones... we seem to conjure up new entitlements and demands on a near-daily basis. Politicians are now the new masters of the freebie marketing strategy, and they execute that strategy with unmatched vigor. Much like the merchant vendor, the politician will promise some, then promise more, and finally promise it all. And as I made mention above, we all love the promise of free stuff, even if the promises fly in the face of logic and reality.

This might sound crazy, but I still hold to the radical belief that words happen to mean something. My fervent fascination with definitions often prompts marital eye rolls and incites terrible date banter. Putting that aside, I highly recommend  picking up a dictionary once in a while and really processing what certain words mean. Knowing actual definitions might be uncomfortable for some, but having control over one’s language goes a long way towards being intellectually honest and sociable. But I digress…

Now honestly consider what “free” means. To be more specific, consider the adverbial interpretation of the word. Whether you imagine a free burrito or a free education, “free” implies that the burrito or education comes without cost or payment. That’s right! Zilch! Zip! Nada! Nothing! No wonder we get so excited. Getting free stuff is like fine wizardry. We witness something of substance appear from the nether dimension where fees, fares, and bills simply do not exist. To top that all off, even watching the magic show is free! Burrito and a show? What’s not to love?

But alas, the magic disappears behind the starry curtain and flashy smoke. Reality rears its ugly scary head. The wonder and awe have given way to disappointment and perspective. All at once, you begin to feel the sharp truths established by years of proven economic theory and statistical data: Nothing is truly free…

“Wait a minute!” You protest, “You mean to tell me that magic doesn’t exist!”

Yes. Yes I do.

All things come at a cost. What is free for one always comes at the expense of another. Someone has to pay the price. Someone has to pay for the tortilla, the meat, the cheese, and the rice. Someone needs to cover the wages for teachers, the costs for textbooks, and the fees for building maintenance. Now look beyond the monetary realm and you begin to recognize the cost of other resources. Each of these costs time. They cost talent. They cost effort. Add upon that even more monetary costs to compensate laborers for the time, talent, and effort that they put into it. In economic reality, all goods and services are only provided from the expenditures and forfeitures of someone else’s resources. Once this is understood, then the argument can begin to change.

“Okay sure, someone has to pay for it. Those nasty rich affluent types can shoulder the burden of extreme taxation and wealth confiscation. However, the entitlements and benefits are entirely free to those who consume them!”

If only that were true.

Remember that cost are not solely limited dollars and cents. Consider the resources you give up to obtain the freebie. Consider the resources I put into obtaining my free burrito. My time and emotion were spent reading the news and media. My phone data and battery were spent replying to the promotion. My energy and effort was spent reassuring myself that E. coli wasn’t in my future. I had to spend some of my resources in order to get the freebie. Granted, my use of resources was miniscule by comparison. However, you cannot argue that I made no expenditure of resources. You cannot argue that the burrito was truly free.

I joke about the burrito, but the principles apply with all “freebies”. On the burrito scale, what you give up may not amount to much of anything. But what about the larger “freebies”? The social experiment “freebies”? Look beyond the monetary and fiscal economic impacts of entitlements. What resources will you have to sacrifice? What freedoms will you have to renounce?

Of all the resources we have, I fear that freedom is the one resource we are most eager to offer in exchange for the freebie. This is not because we despise personal freedoms. Rather, it is because our emotional and ideological aspirations get the best of us when the prospect of “free” dangles in front of our face. The misuse and misinterpretation of the concept of “free” unintentionally creates an atmosphere wherein the freedoms of the makers, AND the takers, will be trampled.

Consider the freedom of choice that so many of us consider sacrosanct. What impact would exorbitant entitlements have on your choice of school? Your choice of healthcare? Even your choice of lifestyle? In a world where freebies maintain the masses, what you are given is ultimately what you will get.

Imagine an average trip to the local Costco. Along the aisles you pass one booth after another, each offering a small morsel or sample from a promoted product. A belligerent consumer pulls from the freezer a selection of premium snacks, removes a handful of appetizers, and demands that the booth chef grill up the batch of food. How does the employee respond? She calls security to come drag the loon out of the store! Why? Because you don’t get to choose which free food gets cooked, and you certainly don’t get to choose copious amounts of free premium food to sample. In short, your choices are at the complete mercy of Costco.

In the world of freebies, what you see is what you get. You don’t get to negotiate quality or quantity. You will take what the giver offers or you are out of luck. Think about the implications of this concept if applied to education or healthcare. The proposed giver, in these cases the government, dictates the standard and limits the choice. You get what they offer, nothing more.

“What’s so bad about that? So long as everyone gets taken care of, why should it matter if there are no choices?”

This may seem like sound reasoning, as long as your wading ankle deep in the shallow pool of thinking. Though it may be uncomfortable, lets wade a little deeper into the waters of logic. Think about what this question implies and maybe ask some further questions:

Do you really like the idea of one-size-fits all education or health care?

How are the finite resources distributed?

What criteria is used to find the most deserving students or patients?

Who gets turned away when resources are depleted?

Who decides what is fair?

Who is the giver?

Are you comfortable being at the giver's mercy?

“No hold on a minute! This is nonsense! Of course you can still make choices for yourself!”

Certainly! You can choose premium care, premium food, and premium services… for a price. But if you are going to use that argument, you simply end up right back where the original problem started. The Have’s have and the Have-Not’s do not have. The only next intellectually honest step is to condemn everyone to a whole new class of Barely-Have’s. Image all the choices and options we will have then!

In addition to the freedom to choose, a freebie society would all but eliminate your freedom to earn. Contrary to the misguided beliefs of many, earning is not evil. Earning is not selfish. Earning is simply the process by which hard work, talent, and intelligence create benefit for the individual. If you can accept this as truth, then you must also accept that some will simply earn more in their lifetime. Some people work harder. Some people are more talented. Some people are more intelligent. Different levels of contribution ensure that there will always be different levels of earning. No handout or entitlement will change that.

The free-stuff model, as interpreted by the world, requires that a man do little, or even nothing. It is argued that by virtue of his mere existence does man deserve equal footing in regards to wealth and prosperity. Effort and merit be damned. Earnings should be confiscated and then redistributed in order to satisfy justice and improve living. However, depriving a man of his earnings also deprives him of his will, his drive, and his purpose. Just another unintended and unsettling consequence of a freebie society.

For some reason, we seem eager to vilify the earners and makers of society. There is a genuine resentment for all things affluent and wealthy. No consideration is made as to how the wealth was accrued. No thought goes into the blood, the sweat, and the effort exerted to obtain that level of living. Further ignorance overlooks the earner’s impact on employment, charity, donation, progress, and investment. Taker’s do not provide jobs. Takers do no donate funds to construct hospitals or schools. Taker’s do not risk personal wealth to invest in progress. These roles are filled by the makers. They are filled by the earners.

A man ought be recognized for his achievement and contribution. He ought to freely earn respect, accolades, and dare I say it… money. If something is honestly earned through legitimate merit, who are we to put a cap or limit on their achievement? Let the industrious earn wealth, praise, and distinction. Conversely, man ought to be recognized for his lack of achievement and contribution. Let the lazy and the greedy earn disdain, scorn, and criticism. Let mankind be free to exercise their freedom do earn. When given the chance, I feel that more good will be earned than bad.

Howard W. Hunter understood this concept of the freedom-sucking freebie. In a time when the ideologies of communism and capitalism clashed, he offered the following words in a address titled "The Law of the Harvest":

"The government will take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have nots.' Both have lost their freedom. Those who 'have', lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who 'have not', lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got 'something for nothing', and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift."

I know there are problems in the world. I know that there are good people suffering in poor conditions. I know there are also bad people prospering in unjust conditions. I won’t pretend that such isn’t the case. However, fixing the problems with freebies is simply not the answer. Often the cost of free stuff is too high.

Struggling people don’t need another hand-out. More than anything, they need a hand-up. Who better to offer that hand-up than those who are on a higher economic plane? If you find yourself mired in economic struggle, don’t fight to tear down those who are in the best position to lift you up. If you find yourself in prosperous circumstances, don’t hesitate to contribute a free hand to help those around you.

Everyone loves free stuff, or at least the concept of free stuff. But not everyone understands the hidden costs of freebies. Keep that in mind the next time a politician campaigns on free-this and free-that. I could go on with a flurry of postulations and opinions, but I have a free burrito waiting for me downtown.