Economic significance of staues and monuments

Economics Economics Questions
1

Hi,

Recently, I came back from a tour of a few European cities. Some cities have a large number of huge statues, monuments and religious buildings. The following points came to my mind.

  1. These statutes/monuments/buildings are economic waste, as the capital used to build them was lost - it did not generate any economic returns. The kings and knights who built these things screwed their taxpayers by reducing the economic output both by taxing as well as from investing capital in economically useless projects.

  2. The construction of these projects may have created new jobs and economic stimulation at the beginning, but in the long term these projects are economic waste.

Is my thinking correct? Please provide your comments.

Thanks,

MG.

2

If the statues, monuments, etc. were paid for voluntarily (not by government or government-esque agents), then there was nothing wrong with the construction of these “public” works, since consumers clearly saw some worth in the projects.

3

Not everything of worth needs to be defined according to its productivity - art, for example, should be valued according to its beauty.

Actually, many of the “monuments” of today had uses - even the titanic squandering of resources that was Versailles has a use: to prove the superiority of the king, and to control the aristocracy.

4

Thanks folks.