After watching a documentary on Rome it occurred to me that Rome is the embodiment of a public good. The roads connecting Rome and Brittany and the aqueducts keeping Rome wet likely provided benefits greater than their costs, and were projects that could only be constructed through the vision and strong-arm of the state. Yet, a village could not accept the roads and refuse Rome itself, for that road brought Rome's tyranny a easily as it did grain. The cost of public goods is larger than the monetary outlays for the actual goods, because the political apparatus that make public goods possible is also a platform for the autocrat.
