The Free Rider Problem The free rider problem has become one of the most serious economic problems today. The free rider is a lazy person who wants the benefits that others bring without having to work. The free rider typically benefits from a public good. Living in a civilized society offers many opportunities for free riding, which we have yet to find a way to control. Economists view the possibility of free riding as a problem for the free market, usually leading to government intervention. Government intervention is generally not necessary in a free market society, but in this case if there were no government intervention this problem would not find a solution. The free rider issue is often seen as a serious problem due to the assumption that the best free rider is self-interest is that they interact with others through force and fraud. If they can get away with fraud and start getting the benefits of others, they have achieved their first goal. Their next goal is to make a lot of money or get credit for someone else's hard work before they get caught. Then they come out and are long gone when someone notices. Life in a civilized society offers each of us the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of the work of people with much greater productive capabilities than ours, but what happens when people start doing it? They get used to not having to do much work and become lazy. In some cases people look at welfare this way. If a person manages to get a good job and chooses not to, but to live off our government, that would be considered free riding. This causes a fluctuation in our market and can have a negative effect. When benefits disappear, people don't want to go back to work and will eventually lose their jobs or quit and become true free riders. Clearly there is an essential difference between cases in which one cannot contribute to the benefits one enjoys and cases in which one chooses not to make a contribution that is within one's power. But this distinction aside, we can distinguish between harmless free riding and worthless free riding. The free rider wants everything he can get for free and won't think anything of it if he can get away with it. Free riders exploit public goods without having to contribute to their creation. For example, if s...... half the paper ......or makes up the difference. This difference that we have to make up for is usually a higher tax. By increasing the tax the price of the good increases and when the price increases the demand tends to decrease. As demand continues to decline and the price continues to rise, the product usually ends up out of business and files a chapter eleven. Typically it doesn't go that far, but this is an example of what could happen. The free market is a privilege and it's a shame that people have to take advantage of it because they don't feel the need to work hard or go out of their way to do something for someone else. The free rider is a menace in our society and we don't need to let him take our money and put it to his own use. We have found ways such as government intervention and price caps to help control the problem, but we have yet to find a solution. Once we find a solution we will have fewer worries and perhaps a truly free market. These are very difficult problems to stop and may never be solved. It will take a long period of time to start the process and finish it, but it will be nice maybe one day to have a truly free market without the problem of free riders..