Public Goods
This is an example of the theoretical thinking shifting the emphasis from faith and theoretical principles such as sovereignty to the socio-economic logic, as Karl Marx did. Thus modern political theorists typically legitimize the state with two major ideas: redistribution and the provision of public goods. In The Limits of Government, David Schmidtz (an economist) takes on the second of these ideas. While a market system may allow self-interested to create and allocate many goods optimally, there exists a class of "collective" - or "public goods" that are not produced adequately in a market system. These collective goods are goods that all individuals want but for whose production it is often not individually rational for people voluntarily to do their part to secure a collectively rational outcome. The state can step in and force us all to contribute toward the production of these goods, and we can all thereby be made better off. There are actually many different opinions when it comes to this topic.
Read more about this topic: Justification For The State
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or goods:
“All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.”
—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes, 8:15.
Compare with Luke 12:19: “And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”