Memorial to Enslaved Laborers as a Public Good

If you walk from from the Rotunda to the Corner, you might notice the small, red flags that dot the grassy slope to your left. These flags mark the area where the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (MEL) will be built, a ring of Virginia granite inscribed with the names of 1,000 of the more than 5,000 enslaved laborers who lived and worked at the University from 1817 until the end of the Civil War.  Memorials like this one are examples of public goods, which have two defining characteristics: they are nonrival, so my consumption of the good doesn’t affect anyone else’s consumption, and nonexcludable, so I can’t deny you access to the good.* The latter characteristic is what makes public goods difficult for the market to provide—free riders have the incentive to consume the good without paying for it.

We see the free rider problem at work even here, with MEL. For reasons not entirely clear to me, the construction of the memorial will be incredibly expensive. The University recently announced a $2.5 million matching fund to raise money for project. The creation of the matching fund suggests to me that private donations were not enough to pay for the project, compelling the University to step in and close the gap. Donors recognize that their decision to contribute will not affect whether they can consume the memorial: On one level, the donors know that the memorial will eventually be built with or without their donation; the University has already publicly committed to the memorial, and going back on that promise would be a PR nightmare, not to mention an injustice to the thousands of men and women whose labor deserves to be recognized. On another level, once the memorial is built, donors' ability to see and experience the memorial will not be contingent on whether or not they donated. Given this non-excludability, potential donors would rather free ride than contribute to the construction fund. If you would like to avoid being a free rider, you can donate to MEL here!

Courtesy Höweler + Yoon Architecture LLP, found at http://www.virginia.edu/slaverymemorial/design.html

*Most “public goods” are really impure public goods, since they technically could become rivalrous or excludable at some point. If a crowd of 800 people surrounds the memorial, their consumption obviously impacts my own, and if the University really wanted to, they could build a wall around the memorial and charge for admission. Because these scenarios seem unlikely, we can fairly discuss MEL as an example of a (mostly) public good.