Why Can’t Everything Be Free?

“Why can’t everything be free?”  I’m always delighted whenever a child asks me, because I have an intellectually solid answer even a child can understand.  Namely: If everyone had to produce for free, there would be virtually nothing to buy.  If everything had a price of zero, consumers would strive to fill their shopping carts with anything they could get their hands on.  Producers, however, would basically stop working. 

(To be clear, this assumes that government strictly enforces this disast...