The cultural heritage circulation in a globalized world: Should we build stronger borders or stronger bridges?

The scope of this paper is to explore if the free market and its corollaries - private property and the freedom to trade both nationally and internationally - are compatible with the conservation, search and optimal use of heritage goods. Our argument starts from the fact that culture is not a free-floating wraith but a set of tangible and intangible elements that are attributed special spiritual signification by the present generation and that are dependent on scarce material means to be expressed and passed on to our heirs. By taking scarcity as our starting point, we will provide an economic analysis of the implications that follow from the alternative approaches that can be employed to manage heritage goods, namely, a private property order coordinated through prices or a public property form of organisation coordinated through orders and interdictions. After tracing the implications of these two general principles of allocating resources, we will briefly look at how heritage goods are regulated, both on a national and international level, to gain a better understanding of the spirit that permeates the "rules of the game." Finally, we are going to see how the two general principles (market vs command and control) apply to the debate raging between the cosmopolites and the nationalists regarding the international trade in heritage goods. After carefully scrutinising some of the arguments put forward in this dispute over the appropriate means to be used, we conclude that free markets and free trade are the only adequate ways for reaching the objective sought by those on both sides of the debate.