@kfitz Thanks for highlighting this! In years of teaching economics for public policy, I always said if I could rename one concept, it would be public good. And of course non-rivalrous and non-excludable don't exactly clear things right up for people.I hope she has more success in making the distinction than I seemed to have. People were darn wedded to their folk definitions.
The Value of Values
In How Infrastructure Works, Deb Chachra notes the confusion potential in uses of the term “public good,” and works to distinguish its economic definition (goods that are non-rivalrous and non-excludable) from what she terms its “moral sense” (110). That we need to make such a distinction says a lot about our culture, and about the choices we make in relation to our infrastructures -- what's worth investing in, and on whose behalf. How might we begin to promote the kinds of collective decision-making in our institutions and our projects that can begin to shift our focus from value to values?
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@kfitz just got to this bit myself and was thinking through this distinction - which I also make in my next book. Hmm.
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