Quotes from The Demand and Supply of Public Goods

By James Buchanan (1968)

• [A] multiplicity of optima is a characteristic of all interaction processes where gains-from-trade are possible [i.e. sharing of the inframarginal gains]. The apparent uniqueness present under perfectly competitive conditions in the private-goods market should be treated as a bizarre exception, not as a characteristic to be mirrored in other settings.#
  MethodologyEconomics
• With production externalities there is a particular efficiency reason for considering publicly managed or controlled supply of service facilities. With consumption externalities, the type of organization should be determined strictly by more orthodox efficiency criteria. The argument for “public schools” (as opposed to “public financing of education”) must rest on a different footing from the argument for “public police protection”.#
  Public GoodsEconomics