| It doesn't apply to any public goods. It can't. Access to national parks isn't a public good. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) > In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)[1] is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. For such goods, users cannot be barred from accessing or using them for failing to pay for them. Also, use by one person neither prevents access of other people nor does it reduce availability to others.[1] Therefore, the good can be used simultaneously by more than one person.[2] This is in contrast to a common good, such as wild fish stocks in the ocean, which is non-excludable but rivalrous to a certain degree. If too many fish were harvested, the stocks would deplete, limiting the access of fish for others. A public good must be valuable to more than one user, otherwise, the fact that it can be used simultaneously by more than one person would be economically irrelevant. How would you even run an auction on a good that's non-excludable? By definition, you can't keep the losers of the auction from using the good. > For example, is it paternalistic to supply clean water via a municipal utility? Do you think that the commonwealth should give poor people enough money to buy clean water in a public market? Sounds reasonable. Most municipal utility (at least in the places I lived in) charge for the water they provide. Usually those charges are very reasonable. It sounds like a lot of hassle to give poor people a weekly water ration in kind. At the very least, you need to involve the water utility in the bureaucracy that administers welfare. Seems like a lot of hassle. Just giving poor people money that they can use to pay their utility bills seems much simpler in comparison. And that's eg what they do in Germany (the country where I know the most about how government welfare is run). At most, you sometimes hear people suggest that the poor need some extra money, if eg electricity or water prices are suddenly higher than before. But I haven't really heard anyone seriously suggest giving poor people a water allowance. Is that common where you live? |