Summary: The Free Lunch Myth

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Pages: 6

Throughout the past several years, there have been a few ethical issues in the government. One ethical issue addressed by an American economist named Milton Friedman is the free lunch myth. Another ethical issue is morality and the free market economy, which is addressed by a political philosopher named Michael Sandel. In “The Free Lunch Myth” and “Morality and the Free Market,” Friedman and Sandel provide arguments on why these issues need to come to an end due to their big impact on society. The free lunch myth is the idea that government can provide goods and services and can spend money at no one’s expense. In “The Free Lunch Myth,” Milton Friedman discusses that nothing in the world is free and Americans are indirectly paying for everything. Friedman supports having no corporate tax since the American people are paying corporate taxes without realizing. The …show more content…
The first part is the belief that businesses can be taxed without anyone paying it. However, since businesses themselves cannot pay taxes and only people can taxes, taxes on businesses have to be paid by some individual. The American people are constantly being told that their taxes will not increase and business taxes will increase. However, this is not possible because individuals pay business taxes so indirectly their taxes are increasing no matter what. Thus, the ramification of the first part of the free lunch myth is no matter what, the American people are still paying taxes. The second part of this myth is money can be created at no cost. However, printing money is just another form of taxation because people will have more money to spend. As a result, prices of objects will increase and due to inflation, individuals will be paying more taxes. The consequence of individuals receiving more money to spend is they will have to spend more money in taxes because prices of items will increase due to