Ecurb wrote: ↑August 25th, 2021, 11:46 am
Your distinction between "private goods" and "public goods" is mere prevarication.
You seem fond of that word, yet don't know it's meaning.
"Public goods" and "private goods" are well-defined and ubiquitous in economics. A "public good" is one which is non-excludable (non-payers cannot be prevented from using it) and non-rivalrous (use by one person doesn't reduce its utility for others). Goods which do not satisfy those criteria are private goods.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicGoods.html
Is education a "private good" or a "public good"? I't's hard to say. I'd suggest it's both.
I agree. Education yields both public and private benefits. But the lion's share of the benefits are private and thus should be born by the beneficiaries (primarily the person educated and employers who need workers with particular skills). The classical argument for universal public education (championed by Madison, Jefferson, and many others following the American Revolution) was that democracies require an educated citizenry --- people cannot wisely govern themselves if they are ignorant. Unfortunately, despite spending 12 years or more in government schools at enormous cost to the public, many of them remain ignorant.
How about housing (the subject of this thread). Homelessness creates public problems, including (but not limited to): pollution (proper bathroom and washing facilities are unavailable), litter, dangerous areas of town, etc. Surely it is a public good to reduce homelessness, and thus clean up our rivers and streets. How do you propose we work for this public good?
No, "homelessness" doesn't create any of those problems. Some homeless people may create some of them, but they would create them even if they were not homeless, and housed people create them also. Being homeless should not be a crime, but neither should it be accepted as an excuse for crime.
A year or so ago a US Federal Appeals Court ruled that cities could not enforce ordinances prohibiting camping or sleeping on public property unless the city provided some other place the homeless could "legally be." "Sleeping is a biological necessity," the court said. The US Supreme Court declined to review that ruling. Most cities have interpreted the ruling to mean that cities must provide enough shelter beds to accommodate their homeless before they can enforce anti-camping ordinances. But the ruling does not explicitly require that; cities could satisfy the ruling by providing a tract of undeveloped land (which most larger cities will already own), supply it with water and porta-potties, and allow unrestricted public camping thereon; thereby providing a place the homeless can "legally be." Charities concerned with the problems of the homeless could set up booths or portable buildings and offer their services to those interested. Such a solution would be cheaper than subsidizing shelter beds, and far cheaper than building "free" housing for anyone who becomes homeless (especially with the "moral hazard" that would invite).
How about health care? Surely (given the pandemic) vaccinating everyone and thus creating a herd immunity is a public good as well as a private one.
I agree. But there is a difference between public health and private health. The former term originally denoted communicable diseases, particularly those vectored through public media, such as public water supplies and the air (cholera, malaria, yellow fever, etc.). The US Public Health Service was established in 1912 to deal with those diseases, and was a true public good. The term "public health" has now been broadened to embrace virtually all ailments and injuries, most of which are strictly private, affecting no one but the patient.
You are the one putting the cart before the horse. You have decided the proper role of government, and don't want to pay for anything outside its aegis. I've also decided what is the proper role of government and want to pay (as well as wanting you to pay) for anything I decide is within its proper aegis. You want to pay for National Defense; I want to pay for Medicare and Social Security. Either can be considered a "public good". Your distinction is simply a red herring.
"Putting the cart before the horse" is assuming a certain level and reach of taxes, then deciding upon what to spend it. You decide the latter first, then decide how much tax is needed and who should pay it.
And, no, Medicare and Social Security are not public goods, whatever you may "consider" them to be. They don't satisfy the definition. On the other hand, those programs are not free lunches, either --- they are insurance programs pre-paid by workers and their employers (though Medicare is mostly a free lunch --- payroll taxes and premiums cover only about 40% of the costs). Defense
is a public good.