  There are some compelling cases of goods that are both joint in supply and nonexcludable. National defense that protects cities against attack from abroad, for example, is for all practical purposes a good with both these features. But the full logic of public goods is of little practical interest for many important contexts. Indeed, what are often practically and politically interesting are goods that are in fact provided collectively, independently of whether they have either of the defining features of public goods. We can even provide purely private consumptions through collective choice. For example, most welfare programs transfer ordinary private consumption goods or resources for obtaining these. Although technically these are not public goods in Samuelson’s sense, we can refer to them as collective goods and we can treat provision of them as essentially problems of collective action.