Ivan Kurill: "The economy was put in the foundation of political planning"

“This phrase, about the fact that there will not be extinguishing forest fires, because the costs of extinguishing are higher than economic damage from fire - it is very important (not in a specific political sense, much wider),” writes a historian on Facebook , commenting on the sensational words of the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

"The last two or three generations put the economy in the foundation of political planning (having pushed the story - yes, I have, of course, BIAS). The economic language rewrote not only the work of markets or people's relations at the enterprise, but also entered into it culture, education, science, nature - and the policy itself - all this is now accepted to describe the language of science and higher education of Russia - an economist - an economist - an economist - an economist. (but this is precisely a special case).

So, the quoted phrase is the quintessence of the "economic approach", and at the same time epitaph to it. And the dispute here is not about whether the author took into account the loss of the loss of health by the population of territories near forest fires. It is about whether it is possible to calculate, for example, is it worth saving works of culture in a fire? (easy after all: the market value of the paintings is compared with the cost of fire extinguishing).

A few years ago, it was calculated how much the fresh water in the world costs, or all the forests (and, it seems, there are already such money in the world) - does this mean that you can buy and destroy them (pollute, etc.)? Or part of them (to raise the price for the remaining)?

In general, here on one side of the scales is a measurable price of fire extinguishing, and on the other - something immeasurable (ordinary tools) - this is true for forests, and for education, and for culture. "