Some Things Are Sacred: How Economics Can Help Us Protect What Matters

1. Matching supply with demand

Spar isn’t trying to quantify everything in life, she stresses. Rather, she argues, applying economics and accounting principles can help us understand how to acquire and protect more of the things we value.

Many of our problems with achieving our emotional needs, Spar says, come from a mismatch between supply and demand.

“If you think about the demand for children, sex, affection, praise, where does that come from? And are there ways, as in any market, to bring supply and demand into closer proximity?” she asks.

That question was brought into stark relief for her when she and her husband adopted a child from Russia in the early 2000s. “I was a person in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wanted a little girl, and there was a little girl in Ekaterinburg, Russia, who needed a mom and dad,” she says. “I didn’t pay for her, but I paid for the information to find her.”

Many sacred markets operate similarly, she says, providing information to reduce the friction of transaction costs in achieving goals. Matchmakers have been doing the same thing “since time immemorial,” she adds, “whether it’s a yenta in an old village or the OKCupids and Bumble now.”

2. Assigning and assessing value

In the absence of prices for sacred goods, she says, people must spell out their needs and priorities to others in their lives. However, many people struggle to communicate their wishes even to those they love.

Many of us have felt blindsided after discovering that someone we love finds meaning in something we didn’t expect, or hurt when someone callously disregards something important to us. Lack of communication is often to blame.

“Even in a good relationship, a partner forgets a birthday, or a child eats a piece of chocolate cake you were saving for a late-night snack and has no idea how important that was,” Spar says. Fights over property after a loved one’s death can bring out especially fraught feelings. “We all have things of sentimental value, and unless we communicate those things, we can’t expect even our most loved ones to know them.”

After all, in an economic market, businesses don’t hide the value of the products they are trying to sell. Similarly, communicating the value we place on emotional transactions can make our relationships healthier and happier, she says.

3. Expanding supply

Oftentimes, Spar says, increasing the supply of connections and experiences requires identifying the intangible values we associate with them, rather than thinking through a purely capitalist lens.

Many countries, for example, have tried to increase birth rates by offering financial incentives to have children, such as tax breaks or extended parental leaves. Those approaches, however, often fail because they can’t compensate for the long hours and sacrifices required in parenthood, despite all its joys, respect, and love. Any effort to boost supply in this realm must align with those sacred values instead, Spar says.

“We have to come up with other ways to communicate and celebrate value,” she says. One area in which we have successfully done that, she adds, is in the military, where the honor and respect society affords veterans provide incentives for people to risk their lives for their country in a way no amount of money ever could.

How businesses can boost sacred goods

Along those same lines, companies can create new business opportunities by finding creative ways to match people to their intangible needs. For example, a slew of new apps, from Bumble BFF to the Bro App, have recently emerged to connect people with other people looking for friends rather than romantic partners.

But what about AI? The technology could soon simulate humanlike connections, elevating a search experience into a sacred good, Spar says. When people start forming authentic attachments with AI, the platforms might transcend their markets, raising new questions about how to value those interactions.

“As long as AI is a goofy chatbot that looks like a paper clip, it’s just a tool,” says Spar, who’s studying AI’s role in the sacred economy. “But as soon as it becomes a companion, we may not want to sell it, or see it, in the same way anymore.”

Lead image created with asset from AdobeStock. Comic created using assets generated in Midjourney, an AI tool.