The government provision of specific, in kind goods : a defence

Abstract

The belief in the more or less universal superiority of the government’s provision of unrestricted cash over in kind goods can be usefully contrasted with an older tradition of thought. According to that tradition, the provision of some goods is so fundamental to our equal standing as citizens that these goods should be treated just as we treat national defense –distributed in kind by the government more or less equally to all--even in the absence of market failure. In Musgrave’s (1957) terminology, these are merit goods – goods that could be supplied by the market according to people’s consumer preferences, but that society has reason to distribute in a different way. Ethical socialists such as R.H. Tawney, William Morris, G.D.H. Cole, and T.H. Marshall argued that there are goods and services that should be provided by the government universally, and often equally, to all citizens. They had in mind goods like a national health service, votes, a job guarantee, housing, protection against market vulnerability, public housing, and free public education, although their list can be extended to other goods, including child care, opportunity for political influence, broadband internet access, food stamps, and even free time. My aim in this lecture is to render this “moral economy” tradition more attractive to contemporary egalitarians and to offer a new defense of in kind good provision.