We somehow might welcome the Cnossen & Van Ewijk statement, since it makes explicit what often is only implicit. In the following I shall deal with the problem in general. I hope to banish TANSTAAFL to the domain of science fiction, so that thereafter we can discuss the labour market in more useful terms.
Consumers surplus
The more innocent examples of free lunches happen around us every day. For example, in a free country, a transaction occurs only when both parties get something out of it. TANSTAAFL adepts will hold that when there is a transaction, and people pay for their lunch, then there clearly is no free lunch. However, the theory of the consumers surplus reminds us that you may pay for your lunch, but likely not as much as you might be willing to pay. If you would not get more out of it, there would be little point is actually doing the transaction. In everyday life, we see few people exchanging dollars for dollars, just for the fun of it. So if p is what you pay for your lunch, and if wtp is your willingness to pay, then wtp - p is your free lunch.
One might argue that the TANSTAAFL conjecture properly reads that p
0. Thus TANSTAAFL-ists accept that wtp > p, but the point would be that you have to invest a nonzero amount before you can reap greater benefits. It would seem to me that the following is the proper reaction to this:
1. We might accept a definition that ‘no free lunch’ means p
0.
2. However, that definition does not warrant universal truth. Some goods have p = 0, notably endowments, ideas and, in a sense, public goods.