| I'm not so sure there is a market-failure justification for spending on any of these. Unless you can research specifically when whichever government you are talking about started to fund universities, highways, or police, then I do not think you can specifically point to market-failure as the sole cause and reason for these government funded programs.
If you're talking about the U.S., then after our independence, I think the Articles of Confederation set aside a specific middle plot of land (#15 if I am guessing correctly) for schools while the surrounding plots were assigned to citizens to live, farm, and improve. I think this was especially true for the mid-west, maybe around Ohio and Illinois. You can wikipedia it.
As for highways, the U.S. saw its spurt in highways after World War II, as rationing for the war came to an end and the Baby Boom occurred. America wanted to escape the depression of war, and explore the rest of the country. I believe public demand for cars, oil, and consumption were so high that the government was the only entity large enough to undertake such expansive construction, although you could argue the construction was actually done by private companies, but contracted and funded by the government to build the freeways westward.
As for police, I'm not too sure about this one. In relation to the U.S., the starting point was taxation without representation on the part of the British. Yet the same controversy of taxes came upon the colonies to pay taxes to form some sort of union, and, therefore, raise taxes to fund an army to defeat the British. I do not know at what point the first U.S. governmental police force was formed. I do know the Secret Service was originally formed to hunt down counterfeiters, but this is certainly a different type of police force than the one we are familiar with on the everyday streets today.  | 
03-22-2008, 08:28 PM
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