Since we’d rather look at well-dressed people than badly dressed people, good clothes have positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidized. (The main problem with this is who would get to decide which clothes count as “good” for this purpose.)
Since we’d rather look at fit people than fat people, physical fitness has positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidised.
Since we’d rather look at people we can visually identify with than people we can’t, ethnic segregation has positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidised.
Since we’d rather look at well-dressed people than badly dressed people, good clothes have positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidized. (The main problem with this is who would get to decide which clothes count as “good” for this purpose.)
Employers pay well-dressed people more money and in general beautiful people get all sorts of advantages. Do you think that isn’t enough of a subsidy?
If there is a net positive externality, then even large private benefits aren’t enough. That’s the whole point of the externality concept.
Since we’d rather look at fit people than fat people, physical fitness has positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidised.
Since we’d rather look at people we can visually identify with than people we can’t, ethnic segregation has positive externalities, and should therefore be subsidised.
Physical education in schools is more or less this.
I’m laughing hysterically. Maybe things have improved, but for a long time, the actual effect of physical education was to make people hate exercise.
Potential problem. Jump to “now let’s get to the fashion.”