Private production of public goods has been the subject of a growing literature in recent times. Competitive models have been in existence for some time. (See especially Thompson, Oakland,and, although I dispute its validity later, Demsetz.) The development of monopoly models is a rather more recent phenomenon. (See papers by Brennan and Walsh, Brito and Oakland, and Burns and Walsh.) This fact is hardly surprising in view of the importance of the goods in question in modern societies. Pay (or cable) T.V. and radio broadcasts, meteorological (and other sorts of) information, the services provided by parks and wilderness areas, theatrical performances, art exhibitions–indeed, the services offered by a whole range of transportation, entertainment, recreation and information facilities–all constitute examples of commodities that have become variously known as excludable (or price-excludable) public goods, marketable public goods, or simply, joint goods. If there is anything surprising about the emergence of the literature on these goods, it is, perhaps, the fact that its development has been delayed so long; neither positive analysis of market behavior, nor normative analysis of market performance, can afford to ignore their existence. A paper in this Review by Edi Karni represents a potentially important contribution to the literature on excludable public goods, in that Karni generates two propositions which, if valid, would undermine much of the existing literature and force a shift in the focus of research. Specifically, he claims that (a) “a perfectly competitive equilibrium is not feasible in the case of exclusive public good?” [Karni, p. 43], Karni's use of the word “exclusive” here is perhaps unfortunate since the essential characteristic of these goods is that consumption is not exclusive – i.e., each unit can be simultaneously consumed by many. Consumption is however excludable, and it is this that Karni clearly had in mind. and (b) imperfect competition leads to “overcommitment of scarce resources to the production of public goods.” [Karni, p. 44] One purpose of this paper is to dispute the validity of Karmi's claims. In doing so, however, I have found it necessary to seek to clarify both the nature and the importance of excludable public goods. This, it seems to me, is an exercise which is useful in its own right; but I was also induced to undertake that task by my belated discovery of the (self-styled) “cynical view” of Robert Ekelund–who, while recognizing a limitation of Kami's characterization of the competitive provision of public goods, also (a) incorrectly identifies an alternative competitive equilibrium for excludable public goods, and (b) casts considerable doubt on the usefulness of the development of models of public goods provision, because of his belief that identified equilibria for public goods markets are “fragile,” and his even more fundamental belief that excludable public good problems are a proper sub-set of already familiar “natural monopoly” problems. An important additional purpose of this paper is to challenge Ekelund's views on the status of models of market provision of public goods.