The military, the police and the court system are public goods BECAUSE THE STATE MADE THEM SO THROUGH ITS TERRITORIAL MONOPOLY. Before they were taken over and their original intent (free people protecting each other) was utterly destroyed, they were not public goods. From the mutualist perspective, the answer is mutual aid: people helping each other on an egalitarian footing, following the principle of reciprocity.

All types of club goods can be efficiently provided by the market, even if they are “natural monopolies.” These “natural monopolies” occur due to economies of scale. However, the apparent under-competition from the “natural monopoly” does not imply that consumers will charge high prices.

All types of club goods can be efficiently provided by non-profit organizations, such as consumers’ cooperatives or joint ownership by the consumers. Since the consumers control them, they can set the prices as low as they wish. The owners can just exclude others who won’t pay.

Examples of “natural monopolies” provided by consumers’ cooperatives include the private road associations in Sweden:

“In Sweden, private road associations manage two-thirds of the road network at less than half the cost and with better results than do the government road agencies. This model is based on a well-structured institutional framework for private ownership of low-volume roads that includes a law on private roads and financial and technical incentives.”

Public goods differ from club goods, as they are non-excludable. Because the owners of cannot exclude others from enjoying their goods, non-excludable goods result in the free rider problem. So public goods can potentially suffer from under-funding.

Even that the free rider problem may potentially arise in public goods, the state can never efficiently provide any public goods, since it lacks competition. Public goods funded or provided by the state are inefficient due to assymetrical information and corruption. Due to state bureaucracy, the plutocrats can easily exploit the principle-agent problem by bribing the bureaucrats. If the state misuses their funds or redistributes these to the rent-seekers, the criminal organization can just increase their taxes to cover their costs. Often, the state provides these “services” hundreds of times inefficiently than the market would. (So the taxpayer burden from “illegal” immigration is negligible compared to the inherent inefficiency of the state’s public “services.”)

Another problem of “public goods” arises due to subjectivity. As in the subjective theory of value, different people value public goods more than others, and some even value these “public goods” having no value or negative value. For example, suppose “schooling” is a public good. While some may suggest that public school enslaves children, others may think that schooling provides value. The individuals who oppose schooling will deny it as a public good. It is also impossible due to assymetrical information or imperfect knowledge. For example, it is controversial whether if forcibly-imposed global warming regulations have a net positive or negative outcome.

However, most of the public goods can be voluntarily funded by more creative techniques, such as boycotts, insurance, technology, treaties, voluntary societies, etc.

Parks and roads? You win on those — but the victory is hollow. If you want to impress me, jump straight to Rand’s “public goods” — a (defensive) military, a (rights-protecting) police force, and a civil court system to enforce contracts — and explain to me why THOSE don’t justify taxes.