Dear Economist,

I suffer ridicule from economist friends when visiting a local restaurant. The restaurant supplies complimentary tissues and toothpicks to customers. My friends freely use them and even take some for later use. I feel this is wasteful and not “playing the game” but their arguments seem more logical – there’s no extra cost to taking more, it is included in the costing for the meal, and I’m the mug subsidising everyone else. How can I overcome my hang-up and become a maximising consumer?

Stuart

Dear Stuart,

This absurd pricing policy is, sadly, ubiquitous. But have you noticed that the right to sit at a restaurant table is also supplied free with the meal? Restaurants try to get around this by charging extra for goods that disproportionately lengthen the time spent at the table – starters, coffee, perhaps also wine. Why not try persuading your economist friends to linger for a few hours after your meal, just for the joy of consuming a free service? You might pass the time constructing miniatures from the toothpicks.

You have already realised that your friends are correct. Perhaps more persuasive than the pure logic is the knowledge that by grabbing tissues and toothpicks, they are holding back the forces of communism. I dimly recall – but have not been able to confirm - that Lenin held up free condiments as an example of the way goods could be free and yet not rationed. It is up to right-thinking people to prove him wrong by walking off with the entire stock.

By grabbing toothpicks, your friends are chipping away not only at bits of salad but at the ideological foundations of communism. They deserve your support.

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