Cultural Heritage

This article criticizes the reduction of Cultural Heritages to Cultural Capital or Cultural Commons. Whereas economists usually reduce heritages to their capital aspects (standard capital for equipment, human and social capital, natural capital, and cultural capital) or to their commons aspects (stock of resources managed by a community), we consider the components of Cultural Heritages (CH) to carry different (and generally intertwined) dimensions that prevent abstraction of the non-economic dimensions of heritages when analyzing their economic dimension. Rather than dodging the question of their multi-dimensionality, we use it as our starting point in explaining the debates about how these heritages should be defined and managed, and the necessity of considering the differing points of view and interests (both material and symbolic) of the various stakeholders.