Things Nobody Sells You: Goods and Services from Government
Roads, parks, and police protection do not come from a store. Learn which kinds of goods and services government usually provides, and why.
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What this means
Most of what you use every day comes from a business. Your shoes came from a store. Your cereal came from a company that makes cereal. Somebody made it, and somebody bought it.
But think about the road in front of your house. Nobody sold it to your family. Think about the streetlight on the corner, the fire truck that shows up when there is a fire, or the park with the good climbing structure. No store sold you those either.
Those things came from government. Government provides some goods and services instead of businesses providing them.
Which ones? Usually the ones that are hard to sell to one person at a time. A store can sell you one pair of shoes, and you get to keep them. But how would a company sell you one streetlight? When the light is on, it shines on everybody walking past, whether they paid or not. It is very hard to make money selling something like that, so businesses usually do not try.
Here is something important: government providing something does not mean it is free. Building a road costs money. Paying firefighters costs money. That money comes from somewhere. It just does not come from you handing cash to a cashier.
Why it matters
Once you notice the difference, you start seeing it everywhere on your way to school. The bus, the crossing guard, the sidewalk, the traffic light, the library, the school itself. A lot of your day runs on things nobody sold you.
Knowing this also helps you ask better questions. When a park gets fixed up or a road gets repaved, somebody decided to do that and somebody paid for it. Those are real decisions made by real people, and grown-ups in your town argue about them all the time.
Real-world example
Think about a big snowstorm. Snowplows go out and clear the streets, usually before anybody is even awake. No family called a plow company and paid for their own street. The town or the city sent the plows.
Now imagine plows were only sold to individual families. Some houses would get a clear street and the houses in between would not. A plow cannot really clear the road in front of one house and skip the next one. That is exactly the kind of service that ends up coming from government instead of a business.
Try it
- As a class, make one big list on the board called "Things We Use." Fill it with anything students can think of: sneakers, pizza, the swimming pool, phones, the fire department, haircuts, streetlights.
- Now sort the list into two columns. Column one: someone sold this to us. Column two: this just seems to be there for everyone.
- For each item in column two, ask the key question out loud: "Could a company sell this to just one person and keep everyone else out?" If the answer is no, that is a strong clue government provides it.
- Add these to your list if nobody said them yet: police protection, keeping roads repaired, public parks, traffic lights, the public library, clean drinking water, and national defense.
- Take a walking tour, either around the school or just around the block, and count the things that came from government. Write down at least five.
- Pick your favorite one from your list and write two sentences: what would daily life be like if that one thing simply did not exist?
- Discuss: where do you think the money to pay for these things comes from? Write down your best guess. You do not need the right answer yet, just a real guess.
Teacher note
The sorting question in step 3 is the whole lesson, so keep returning to it. Students at this age will otherwise sort by "important" versus "not important," which produces confusion fast, because food is extremely important and is sold by businesses. The useful test is whether a seller can keep non-payers out. Nobody can be excluded from a lit street or a defended country, and a park with an open gate is very hard to charge for.
Expect two persistent misconceptions. The first is that anything from government is free. Push back gently and concretely: firefighters get paid, plows use fuel, and someone bought the swings. The next lesson handles where that money comes from, but plant the idea here so "free" does not harden. The second is that everything the government touches is provided by government. A city hires a private construction company to repave roads, so the work is done by a business while the road itself is still provided publicly. Do not over-explain this, but do not let a student who notices it be told they are wrong.
Watch also for students who put anything with a uniform in the government column. Security guards at a mall, delivery drivers, and airline pilots wear uniforms and work for businesses.
A student has it when they can look at a brand-new example they have never discussed, such as a lighthouse or a public beach, and correctly reason about whether one person could be sold it and everyone else kept out.
Check yourself
Which of these is usually provided by government rather than by a business?
Why do businesses usually not sell things like road repair or national defense?
Your town builds a new public park. Is the park free?
Government usually provides the goods and services that nobody can be kept out of, like roads, parks, and protection, and those things still cost money even though no one sells them to you.