Monuments as Consumption Goods: Economic Aspects of Preservation of Monuments in Postmodern Society

Scientific Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Economics - Other, Masaryk University (Public Economics), language: English, abstract: The paper analyses economic dimension of preservation of monuments in today's society together with possibilities and threats that is connected with.
Term postmodern society is defined and its influence to resources of economic theories is explored. Characteristic of postmodern society is followed by specification of two basic economic methods how to reflect on society and individual. The two basic ways of reflection on behavior of individual emphasize either maximization of utility or influence of institutions. They make possible to analyze the approaches of individuals and society to given issue, preservation of monuments in our case. New opportunities and possibilities of effective preservation of monuments are analyzed too.
Preservation of monuments came into existence as a response to conversion of feudal society to industrial one. Its rapid economic growth began to endanger many rare monuments from the past. The basic problems of preservation of monuments associated especially with dynamism of economic mechanism have survived changes in society till nowadays.
Postmodern society brought along transformation of live style and models of behavior. We can learn new types of endanger for nowadays monuments by analyzing consequences that arise from current situation in society. Postmodern society on the other hand entails new support for preservation of monuments. One of the models of postmodern personality is tourist. Growing education of today's society contribute too to appreciation of ancient values and consequently to their preservation.
The results of the paper suggest that our epoch as well as any other epoch brings along possibilities that could act both positively and negatively. In order to exploit given possibilities only positively we should accept the fact that new possibilities require new discipline.