Condom: not a public good

Few earthly commodities bring greater glee to a college male than free condoms.

Back in August, I walked into the Student Union men’s bathroom and spied with my eye a condom dispenser. I peed, grabbed an optimistic handful of lubricated latex and left.

As I returned to the Pit, pockets jangling with rubber freebies, I was pestered by a voice. It was the Ghost of Economics 101 Past, whispering, “Nothing is free! Nothing is free!”

Alas, the voice was right. Nothing in an economy is 100 percent free: even in Soviet Russia, every good had its price. The question is not whether a good is free, but who’s paying for it.

The University subsidized the condoms in my pocket. Subsidies, in economic terms, are government policies to lower the price of a good and encourage citizens to consume it.

Governments aim to alter behavior with subsidies. Given that truth, I postulated the University’s motives for subsidizing student sex, and whether rubber subsidies were fitting.

Did the University seek to shelter students from STDs? I doubt free condoms would alter the idiotic antics of students who practice unsafe sex. Did anyone see those Union condoms and exclaim, “Oh perfect, a free condom! Now I can end my unsafe sex phase”?

Did the University want to prevent student pregnancy? Seems to me that students have reasons aplenty to avoid pregnancy without encountering a free condom dispenser. Diaper costs and parents’ scorn have dissuaded decades of students from condomless sex.

Perhaps the University wanted to provide condoms for students who can’t afford them. That’s an admirable intent, but distributing condoms on a first-come, first-served basis does not guarantee that the neediest students will get them.

Maybe instead of doing the above, the University’s condom subsidies went to students who already have lots of great safe sex — who took advantage of free condoms to do what they would have paid for.

Do we really want our tuition to subsidize peers who’re getting more action than us?

There’s a worse fate for these condom subsidies: waste. Free condoms give students an incentive to take more than they need. While we’re realistic about not buying a $4 box of Trojans that’ll gather dust on our bookshelf for months, when condoms are free, we hyperbolize our future condom use.

After the first week of school in August, the Union condom dispenser lay empty for months until Halloween (when it ran out again after a few hours). Despite the University’s apparent desire to subsidize condoms, costs caught up to them and glove subsidies failed.

Why oughtn’t the University subsidize condoms? Condoms are not a public good. A public good, in economic terms, can be used by the masses without depletion and it’s hard to make people pay for its consumption.

Governments and universities should provide public goods where the market fails. Condoms are private goods. The private condom market is alive and well, unlike my sex life.