"This result leads, at this stage of analysis, to rather pessimistic conclusions about the allocation of public goods. Samuelson has demonstrated that the equilibrium attained by a market mechanism for public goods will, in general, fail to be an optimum. The analysis here implies that a majority rule political process will fail to reach an equilibrium at all. Thus, in the case of public goods, society can count upon neither the market nor a majority rule political process to be a desirable allocative device."

-- Charles R. Plott, "A Notion of Equilibrium and its Possibility Under Majority Rule," The American Economic Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Sep., 1967), pp. 787-806.