Human action is usually driven by the desire to obtain more for less, and, ideally somethingfor nothing. This has sometimes been called the economic principle. The wish to “get freestuff” pervades all times and places, all sectors of the economy, all ages, and all socialbackgrounds. The very selfishness for which the market economy is often chided is, atbottom, a universal quest to obtain goods for free. Jörg Guido Hülsmann sets out to explorethe boundaries of this endeavor. He investigates the nature, forms, causes, and consequencesof gratuitous goods and concludes that they thrive within a free economy. But generosity andgratuitous abundance tend to be undermined and reversed by central banking and the welfarestate.
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