A soft bastion or a luxury item?/ A risk called "More than 60% reduction in the share of cultural expenses in the portfolio of urban households"

The economy of culture in war conditions is not only the market of books and cinema tickets. The economy of culture means the infrastructure for preserving and reproducing human capital and collective identity in the midst of economic and security pressures. In war conditions, culture is not reduced to luxury goods; It turns into a soft trench. Where the new generation either remains hopeful for the future, or becomes empty from the inside. The economy of war culture is the economy of sustainable access to meaning, knowledge and aesthetic experience; No

Today's luxury culture, however, often contains capitalist ideas and lampoon roots that do not produce a meaning that fits the real needs of society. Instead of strengthening the epistemic and moral foundation of the new generation, this culture promotes superficial consumerism and disconnection from social responsibility, and it becomes more ineffective and harmful precisely in war conditions.

Is Iran's cultural economy at risk of collapse due to the war conditions of the last 15 months? The answer is clear: no. The pressure is real, but collapse is not inevitable. What threatens us is not the war itself; The policy of passivity and prioritization is wrong. When the costs of producing books, paper, film screenings, and theater performances skyrocket and household purchasing power falls free, it is natural that the demand for cultural goods declines.

The statistical comparison is telling. Four years ago, the share of cultural expenses (books, press, cinema, theater and similar activities) in the portfolio of urban households was estimated at 1.8 to 2.2 percent. Today, with paper, ticket and production costs soaring, this share has fallen below 0.7 percent in many middle- and low-income households. The decrease of more than 60% of the real share shows that cultural access has disappeared not because of the apathy of the young generation, but because of the destruction of purchasing power.

Today's conditions in Iran are close to hyperinflation, and in hyperinflation, the future of the new generation may be robbed and they will be denied access to education and skills training opportunities. The economy of culture is precisely at this point: if the chain of access to knowledge and cultural experience is broken, the educational and skill deprivation of the new generation will accelerate.

But history has shown that the societies that were able to revise the cultural distribution network during the siege and war, not only survived, but also preserved their human capital.

The way out is a creative and practical way. First, the government should remove the cultural economy from the purely market logic and consider it as part of the war economy. That is, the government and public institutions should accept the cost of the minimum access of the young generation to books, magazines, cinema and theater as a strategic cost, not a consumption cost. Second, alternative distribution networks should be formed: neighborhood mobile libraries, subsidized digital subscriptions to essential books and journals, targeted subsidized tickets for schoolchildren and students, and support for low-cost but high-quality domestic content production that reproduces meaning and social responsibility. Third, the private cultural sector should not be abandoned; It should be kept in the production circuit with targeted exemptions and short-term facilities so that the supply chain does not break.

The main question is: how to get out of the crisis so that youth and teenagers are not harmed to access cultural goods? The answer lies in changing government policies. The current policy that places culture in the category of excludable costs is precisely the same passive logic as seen in other economic areas: bearing the pressure instead of returning the cost of the pressure.

The government should make three immediate changes: First, the culture budget should be removed from the mathematical and austerity logic and turn it into a "soft defense" budget. Access to books and movies for teenagers is an investment in the future, not a luxury expense. Second, a targeted subsidy mechanism should be designed: not a general subsidy that ends in rent, but a subsidy based on student and student cards for tickets, books and digital subscriptions. Third, the administrative and tax obstacles on cultural producers should be reduced. When the theater publisher and producer are crushed under the pressure of paper, zinc and rent costs, etc., the supply is destroyed and the price for the final consumer becomes astronomical.

The economy of culture in war is also a test of political will. If the policymaker sees culture as an area that can be ignored, he will deprive the new generation of access to meaning and knowledge, and he will pay for it years later with the erosion of human capital. But if it sees culture as part of an offensive economy and a soft defense, it can maintain an access network even in the midst of pressure.

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