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Eric,
I think one should not confuse this use by
Smith of the term "public good" with how it
is now used by economists. Arguably it is
the case that Smith was describing the kind
of collective entity in public health that we would
now describe as a public good. But that can
also be debated.
I think what Smith meant in this instance
by that term was a moral judgment: that pubic
health is something that is morally "good" and
that it is so for many people and therefore is
publicly so. The current usage is that "good"
refers to a commodity or a service or something
that is consumed by the public collectively, not its
moral or judgmental character as with Smith in this
particular passage.
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University
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