Public goods, in mainstream economic theory, are goods that are nonrivalrous, where one person using a good does not preclude anyone else’s capacity to do the same, and nonexcludable, where owners of the public goods are generally unable to restrict anyone’s access to the good. Commonly touted examples include public lighting, like streetlights, radio, firework shows, military defenses, and flood defenses.
To the mainstream, public goods present an economic and social problem. According to their understanding, the lack of rivalry and excludability allows free riders to exist, which eliminates the profit motive for providing the good and thus the incentive to provide it in the first place. This means that the market on its own would not produce enough public
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