Often enough free ain't free, Emily in Paris edition

Amazingly the real Paris isn’t like Emily in Paris. Apartments are rather smaller for example - as anyone who has ever tried to live that artistic life in the garret will recall. As the French themselves insist interacting with Parisians can have its downside too. But it’s this part of the description that interests us:

With Emily’s fourth season approaching I’d suggest another kind of escapist speciality tour: one that introduces foreigners to France’s free preschools; its practically free universities; and its universal healthcare.

Things that are not free to produce and or provide turn out not to be free.

The tax wedge is the gap between what your employer tries to pay you and what you get in the palm of your hand. For France this is 47% of your wages. For the US this is 30% of your wages. As it happens - and they don’t need to exactly match up - this is approximately the difference between how much of GDP flows through government in the two polities.

17% of all economic activity is flowing to pay for those “free” things. Which isn’t a definition of free that we think is useful. In fact, we think it’s downright misleading and therefore dangerous.

Things that cost to provide are never going to be free - it’s always who delivers them and how are they paid that is the question.