"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 phrase is central to Robert Heinlein's 1966 libertarian science fiction novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,[1] which popularized it.[2] The free-market economist Milton Friedman also popularized the phrase[3] by using it as the title of a 1975 book, and it often appears in economics textbooks;[4] Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is "at the core of economics".[5] The acronyms TANSTAAFL (which appears in Heinlein's novel) and TINSTAAFL are also used. Uses of the phrase and the acronym dating back to the 1930s and 1940s have been found, but the phrase's first appearance is unknown.[3] The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the nineteenth century practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" with drinks.
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