“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves the largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

— Sir Alexander Tytler, “The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic,” 1776

The legendary economist Milton Friedman once summed up an entire economic and political philosophy in one axiom: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Yet a cursory glance at the state of politics on the national level would seem to suggest otherwise, given the extravagant promises of new entitlements financed from seemingly nowhere (assuming of course, one ignores the man behind the curtain).

For example, the $400 billion Medicare prescription drug entitlement signed by President Bush quickly exploded to a cost of $550 billion over the next decade almost as soon as it was passed — yet Bush did not bat an eye at his $150 billion fleecing of the American public, nor could his loyal Republicans be bothered to even attempt to roll back what they now consider to be such an onerous spending burden. Likewise, Democrats and interest groups with a stake in the largess complained not of the fact that such lavish spending puts an unbearable strain on a system which already faces certain fiscal calamity, but rather of the stinginess of the benefit being handed out — or looted from the paychecks of younger generations, depending on how you look at it.

All of this prompts a new look at what Friedman was saying — just what does he mean by “no such thing as a free lunch?” The idea is quite simple — despite how much politicians may wax on about the “need” for yet another government benefit, such programs never come without cost. Of course, such costs are usually swallowed by political constituency with the least clout (in this case, young voters) for the sake of redistributing their wealth to those with the most sway (e.g., seniors).

Naturally, the beneficiaries of government spending would rarely call their gains ill-gotten, but instead claim that they are “entitled” to such, going even further sometimes to call these forcibly extracted benefits “rights.” It’s not uncommon — think of how many times a politician or activist has claimed a “right” to free health care, education or the like. Yet what it ignores is the fact that unlike other rights such as free expression, free association and the right to be secure in one’s domicile, “rights” like health care do not come without cost.

Thus an important distinction arises between so-called “positive” and “negative” rights. Negative rights are the rights we typically associate with the Bill of Rights — prohibitions on coercion by government and individuals. For example, no one is allowed to jam a gun in another’s face to silence his right to speak freely, nor are they allowed to enter another’s home without permission. Rights like these require no positive action on the part of others — rather, they simply require that peoples and governments not engage in certain actions, namely coercion to achieve certain ends. No “cost” is associated with the government or individuals being prohibited from restricting freedoms.

Positive rights represent the opposite idea — to bring them about, they require direct action on the part of others. To grant a right to free health care requires either the coercion of the doctor or the confiscation of wealth from others to pay for said services. Every positive right thus comes at the expense of a negative right — the positive right to free health care comes at the expense of the negative rights of the liberty of doctors to treat the patients they choose on their terms or the rights to private property of the public at large.

In the political spectrum, libertarians typically define their philosophy exclusively by negative rights whereas socialists typically define their agenda by positive ones, with liberals sitting somewhere between. Yet despite how one may feel about which negative rights should be absolute and which ones should be compromised for social policy goals, what should always be kept in mind is the essential difference: Like Friedman said, there is no such thing as a free lunch — only another sucker who gets stuck paying the check.