The idea that free markets "obligates greed", in a particular cartoon-villain sense of greed, is propaganda, not what the theory actually says. (Now, we can have a very profitable discussion about whether and where it enables greed, or perhaps structurally encourages it, and some interesting conversations on whether "encourages greed" is even necessarily always bad. But there is no way in which one is obligated to greed, such that you are somehow betraying some sort of ideal if you decide for your own reasons to act altruistically.)
I'm sort of amused at the number of people getting peeved about this. This person is volunteering to work for nearly-free for government civil service... if you are anti-capitalism or anti-free market and think people should be doing more for and with government... isn't that exactly what this is?
Are we really going to try to spin "someone volunteered to help the government with something" into "free markets are evil"? It seems to get rather into the "doth protest too much, methinks" domain.
This is one of the known failures of free markets, regardless of the actors intent the effect of his behavior is negative for those trying to participate in the market as a means of sustenance.
I'm not mad at the guy, he can do whatever he wants. It's just kind of a crappy thing to do knowingly to other people and, if widespread, could have some strange externalities.
If he won at a bid based on cost it would have kept the market at a price level comparable for all participants. He won the bid by ignoring all cost which has the effect of lowering the entire marketplace by pushing prices down.
Having worked in a government agency before, I guess I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a needed project would be delayed indefinitely while we waited for market dynamics to correct themselves.
