ABSTRACT
National forests mean different things to different people. To some they reflect a national tradition of making museums, parks, and playgrounds available as “merit goods” (Musgrave, 1959, part I, p. 13) at no expense to users in order to encourage participation in activities that are considered to be in the interest of a civilized society. To others, they represent publicly owned real estate which, in the interest of an overburdened tax-paying public, should be managed to maximize the returns to the U.S. Treasury. In promoting the first view, the statement is often made that since the public owns the national forests, those forests should be viewed as available for public use, not private profit. In advancing the second view, there are dark mutterings about the inequitable burden that users of primary commodities—that is, timber, forage, and minerals—must bear in order to accommodate consumers of final consumption services, namely, the amenities enjoyed in situ by recreationists in the national forests. Both views enjoy some (albeit only tenuous) sanction in American tradition, even though when brought together in addressing the same issue they are found to be in conflict unless managed artfully.
