{"id":1991,"date":"2010-07-07T15:35:10","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T20:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2010-07-08T14:05:02","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T19:05:02","slug":"give-it-away-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1991","title":{"rendered":"Give it away for free"},"content":{"rendered":"

I once read an entire book on giving, or givenness, or something, by Jacques Derrida.  The point was, so I seem to remember, that you can't ever really give anything, even anonymously, because it all gets rolled into an economy.  Now of course "giving" in that text means a lot more than just giving stuff.  But nonetheless, the point is clear.  It seems a local op-ed columnist has had a similar idea.  She writes<\/a> of his encounter with some girls who have a lemonade stand:<\/p>\n

\n

The three young girls — under the watchful eye of a nanny, sitting on the grass with them — explained that they had regular lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and small chocolate candy bars.<\/p>\n

Then my brother asked how much each item cost.<\/p>\n

"Oh, no," they replied in unison, "they're all free!"<\/p>\n

I sat in the back seat in shock. Free? My brother questioned them again: "But you have to charge something? What should I pay for a lemonade? I'm really thirsty!"<\/p>\n

His fiancee smiled and commented, "Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving."<\/p>\n

That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine.<\/p>\n

"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."<\/p>\n

I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.<\/p>\n

"You must charge something for the lemonade<\/strong>," I explained. "That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money."<\/p>\n

I was confident I had explained it clearly. Until my brother, breaking the tension, ordered a raspberry lemonade. As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?"<\/p>\n

And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly.<\/p>\n

No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy<\/strong>. We all act as if the "lemonade" or benefits we're "giving away" is free.<\/p>\n

And so the voters demand more — more subsidies for mortgages, more bailouts, more loan modification and longer periods of unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Other than the obvious fact that this person is a massive tool for lecturing three girls in this way (she says it's a true story), the analogy makes no sense.  Presumably the parents have given the girls permission to give away free lemonade.  In a similar fashion, people who support public benefits, etc., give their permission to distribute their goods (tax money). <\/p>\n

And I don't remember voters clamoring for more bailouts and other versions of corporate welfare (which oddly don't seem to bother the author here).<\/p>\n

**Update.  the "he" above is a she.  And I just saw her on MSNBC, which called her a "financial expert"–liberal media.  And speaking of liberal media.  No Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) on that channel<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I once read an entire book on giving, or givenness, or something, by Jacques Derrida.  The point was, so I seem to remember, that you can't ever really give anything, even anonymously, because it all gets rolled into an economy.  Now of course "giving" in that text means a lot more than just giving stuff.  But … Continue reading Give it away for free<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,141],"tags":[701,229,702,699],"class_list":["post-1991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed-writers","category-specious-comparisons","tag-generosity","tag-liberal-media","tag-markos-moulitsas","tag-terry-savage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1997,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions\/1997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}