Final answer:
Societies provide public goods like national defense, public safety, and education to ensure community-wide benefits due to their non-excludable and non-rival characteristics, which are not efficiently provided by the private market.
Step-by-step explanation:
Societies provide public goods because they are services that benefit all members of a community and are not easily provided by the private sector. Examples of public goods include national defense, public safety through police and fire services, and education. Providing these goods ensures that everyone is protected and services are available to all without direct charges, which is especially important as they encompass non-excludable and non-rival characteristics that make private provision inefficient or insufficient. Through government intervention, made possible by the power to tax and regulate, societies can collectively finance and distribute services that may otherwise be subject to the free-rider problem or not provided at all.