Public Goods

Understanding public goods as positive externalities enables us to consider people that are not typically classified as members of a public to be our beneficiaries. This definition stands in contrast to economic discourse, where non-contributing users of some public good are considered "free riders," indicative of market failure. How coul

When we think of the public, we should think expansively. This is not to say that we must consider everyone in the world as a part of our public. As we emphasized in our essay on squads, we also celebrate small, self-selective communities and trust-based groups. But by considering the effects (positive and negative) that we might have on groups at

By addressing concerns rooted in our felt localities and establishing social models for others, we can catalyze truly global public goods.

Every one of us is a beneficiary of the public goods of societies past. These grand projects humble us. Cathedrals, great canals, sanitation, the expansion of mass literacy—they tell us that the "goodness" of a public good is also measured in terms of its longevity. To match these great works, we must extend our time horizon. We want to e

That private platforms such as Amazon’s Twitch, Twitter and Facebook now constitute the digital equivalents to public spheres is as much a political failure as one of our collective imagination.

Each of these examples is based on a different idea of what makes life meaningful—on an idea of what is "good" (Taylor, 1977). Public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, but more importantly, they are objects that satisfy values that are shared.