The purpose of this essay is to analyze Léon Walras’s theory of public interest goods. For him, “services and products of public interest are theoretically those that interest men as members of the community or of the State emanating from the authority to establish social conditions, that is, from the satisfaction of needs that are the same and equal to all” ([1875, 1897a] 1992, EEPA, p. 187). In Walras’s mind, this definition meant that public interest goods could not be factored into the utility function, in sharp contrast with the standard approach in public goods theory. Walras did not imply that public interest goods were not useful, but he maintained instead that their utility was felt only by the community as a whole and not by the individual. Walras developed an anti-individualistic view of the State in which the collective interest was not reducible to the sum of private interests.

中文翻译：

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莱昂·瓦尔拉斯的公益品理论：走向国家的有机观

本文的目的是分析莱昂·瓦尔拉斯的公共利益产品理论。对他来说，“从理论上讲，公共利益的服务和产品是那些让作为社区或国家成员的人感兴趣的服务和产品，这些服务和产品源于建立社会条件的权威，即满足所有人相同和平等的需求。 ”（[1875, 1897a] 1992, EEPA, p. 187）。在瓦尔拉斯看来，这个定义意味着公共利益物品不能被考虑到效用函数中，这与公共物品理论中的标准方法形成鲜明对比。瓦尔拉斯并没有暗示公益物品没有用处，但他坚持认为它们的效用只有整个社区而不是个人才能感受到。