Noonan and the public good

We are using one of Jeff Noonan's excellent books on the critique of materialist ethics.  Essential to Noonan's critique is the concept of "life value" as opposed to individualized "money value."  In this article, Noonan lays out a defence of public institutions (and the workers who run them) as contributing to collective "life-capacity development."  Noonan's position is that the preservation of public institutions is essential for defending justice and the good.  Do you agree with Noonan?  Is it essential for a just society that public workers fight to preserve the dignity of public institutions like at the University of Windsor?