In a different public economics class, my professor was discussing the properties of public goods: non-rivalry and non-excludability. And in order to illustrate an example of a good that falls very near the non-rivalrous, non-excludable ends of the respective spectra, my professor mentioned knowledge as a good that comes quite close to meeting both criteria. Certainly, one individual acquiring knowledge does not harm anyone else's ability to "consume" the same good. And, in the main, it is hard to prevent people from acquiring knowledge. This example, however, led me to think of contradictions to the non-excludability principle as it relates to knowledge.
In my first year at UVA, I was in a dorm called Gibbons, which was named after William and Isabella Gibbons, a couple that had been enslaved at UVA before being emancipated at the end of the Civil War. While the Gibbons family was owned by professors at UVA, Virginia law dictated that it was illegal for any slaves to become literate (most Southern states had this law). Yet despite this law, and in spite of the will of the UVA faculty, William and Isabella learned to read and write by themselves. And after emancipation, Isabella became a long-time teacher at the Jefferson school, while William became a prominent minister, founding two Baptist churches.
Of course, nobody in our society today believes that it should be illegal for anyone to be literate. But considering their story led me to think of a slightly different angle on the non-excludability principle. Instead of asking, "can this good be excludable?" we might ask "should this good be excludable?" Or, in economic terms, does there exist a sizable social benefit in making a good non-excludable? Instead of excludability being an inherent feature of a good, perhaps there are social aspects at play in which a community can make this assessment for itself.
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