A public service is a service which is provided by government to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income. Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are usually subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors. Public service is also a course that can be studied at a college and/or university.
Read more about Public Service: Sectors, Characteristics, History, Nationalization, Privatization, Public Services Versus Services of General Interest
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or service:
“The slogan ‘45 minutes in Havana’ was not coined in the Cuban city, but in a Yankee cigar factory here.”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)