Human action is usually driven by the desire to obtain more for less, and, ideally something for nothing. This has sometimes been called the economic principle. The wish to “get free stuff” pervades all times and places, all sectors of the economy, all ages, and all social backgrounds. The very selfishness for which the market economy is often chided is, at bottom, a universal quest to obtain goods for free. Jörg Guido Hülsmann sets out to explore the boundaries of this endeavor. He investigates the nature, forms, causes, and consequences of gratuitous goods and concludes that they thrive within a free economy. But generosity and gratuitous abundance tend to be undermined and reversed by central banking and the welfare state.
Dr Hülsmann is a professor of economics at the University of Angers in France. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute and a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.