Public good / common good

Basis

The page builds on the source cards and searches in the source texts for public good, common good, public value, fellesgode and samfunnsgode.

Definitions in the sources

Source	Definition/use	Page	U/T
Fairfield & Engel 2015	Privacy is a public good as the term is strictly defined in economics; lack of privacy is a public bad	423	U
Fairfield & Engel 2015	Privacy is an impure public good, approaching a pure public good further out in the network	442–443	U
Bear & Mathur 2015	The desirable ideals considered beneficial for everyone, which justify changes to bureaucracies; they argue against the economic definition	20–21	U
Bear & Mathur 2015	‘New public goods’: fiscal discipline, transparency, decentralisation	18	U
Mazzucato 2018	Public value is more useful than public good; the public good concept has often limited public actors	807, 809	U
Warren 2018	Agencies providing broadly agreed public goods hold a ‘public trust’; warranted trust relationships are ‘common-pool resources’	89–91	U
Solove 2011	When privacy is weighed as an individual right against the common good, society nearly always wins	49	U
Steiger 2019	Cites the German Census Judgment: state monitoring affects not only the individual but also the common good	79	U
Marres 2007	Criticises French STS sociologists for relying on a republican notion of the common good	764	U
Asdal 2015	The report links industry to a shared history; the card's heading is ‘industry as a common good’	80	T

Where usage diverges

• Economic or ethical-political? Fairfield & Engel use the strict economic meaning (p. 423) [U]. Bear & Mathur explicitly argue against this meaning (p. 20) [U]. Mazzucato wants to replace the concept with public value (p. 807) [U].
• What is the good? For Fairfield & Engel, privacy itself is the good (p. 423) [U]. For Bear & Mathur, the goods are ideals such as transparency and fiscal discipline that bureaucracies claim to serve (p. 18) [U]. For Warren, the goods are what public agencies provide, such as social security and health care (pp. 89–90) [U].
• Limitation or justification? Mazzucato writes that the public good concept has limited what the state can do (p. 809) [U]. Bear & Mathur write that claims to serve the public good give bureaucracies legitimacy (p. 18) [U].

Concepts easily confused with this one

• Public good and common good: Solove and Steiger use common good for society's interest weighed against the individual (Solove 2011, p. 49; Steiger 2019, p. 79) [U]. This is not the same as the economic category in Fairfield & Engel [T].
• Public good and commons: NOU 2022:11 uses the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (p. 32), and Fairfield & Engel place themselves after Ostrom (p. 421) [U]. Commons and public goods are related but different categories in economics [T – general knowledge, not from the sources].
• Public good and public trust: Warren uses ‘public trust’ for trust in the agencies that provide public goods (pp. 89–90) [U]. See trust.

How the concept is used in the primary documents

• NOU 2022:11:
  • Privacy must be recognised as a societal good (samfunnsgode) with fundamental value (p. 9) [U].
  • It is a collective and solidary value (p. 10) [U].
  • It is both an individual good and a collective societal good (p. 31) [U].
  • The commission compares this with the environment and climate debate and the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (allmenningens tragedie) (p. 32) [U].
• FFI report: the concept is not used on the primary card [T].

Open questions for Rebekka

• Which meaning of ‘good’ do you use yourself?
• Is the NOU's samfunnsgode closest to the economic meaning, the ethical-political one, or a meaning of its own?
• Will you use the different meanings as analytical tools, or only as background?