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There are some things around that we call free goods as opposed to economic goods. No goods are really free; some simply have no market price at the present time, so they are treated as if they are free. Old economics textbooks called air a free good, but that is really no longer true; at least it is not true everywhere. In many cities, pollution makes the air "unfit to breathe." Clean air there is not a free good; there is a cost to making it clean. In many mountain areas, air is still clean and is a free good. You can have all that you want without sacrifice, and so can anybody else who manages to hike there. One needn't worry about how free goods, including air and running water in many wilderness areas, will be allocated among competing interests. There is a lot of air and water, and only a few want to use them. There is no scarcity involved. There is no scarcity involved.
Who is interested in free goods, then? Certainly not economists. Perhaps physicists, hydrologists, biologists, and chemists are interested in free air and water. But the economist steps in only when the problem of scarcity arises, as it does in urban areas, where the allocation of scarce resources is at issue. We have seen throughout history that as population and production increase over time, many previously "free" goods have become "economic" goods, such as land for mining, water and air for industrial uses, and water for hydroelectric power. To the native American Indian population, tobacco leaves growing in the wild were a free good before Sir Walter Raleigh's arrival. The Indians could have all they wanted without sacrifice. Later, however, tobacco leaves became an economic good.
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