Would anyone of you buy something which you were not going to use later? Of course not (if, of course, there are no other circumstances, for example, if the person is forced to buy the item). What if that product causes harm?-again no. For example, if you hate hard rock or any other type of music (it gets on your nerves), you don’t buy that CD and listen to that music at home. Come on, we are not that foolish. However, have you ever noticed that we have been buying such products for the past couple of years?
There is the following concept in economics: social goods. I will explain what this means to both kinds of people that have no clue about economics. Businesswise, social goods production is not profitable, however, the state needs those kinds of products and the state is the one that is involved in producting those products (by ”producing” we refer to the whole concept). As an example, we can state defense, security, the legal system, middle education, highway, bridges, etc.
Since I don’t want to go further into explanations (I am certain that it will be more clear as to what I am talking about in the context of the article), I will move on. So, what financial resources does the state use to make social goods production a reality? Well, what else can it use besides the taxes paid by us, the citizens? For example, we pay taxes for security (the state keeps the army with the taxes it receives from us).
It appears that the state decides which goods are necessary for society, in other words, it makes the decision for us (we can not look at this from the negative side becauwe none of us would do that on our own). Here we have people from this or that level of society who might not go along with what the state decides as social goods. However, the opinions of the majority of people are taken into consideration because there may be unsatisifed people in any case. I repeat-majority.
Now I will put an end to this “lecture” and I will talk more subjectively.
It turns out that there are social “goods” that do not fulfill the demands of the people, but rather, they do the opposite…
A great example of this is Armenian Public Television. First of all, why was this television network called “public” in the first place? Today, there are many private television networks in Armenia, but the most private, according to the laws of the market, the network must look at things from the materialistic perspective. So, what they do is tape and show programs during which putting on a few commercials is profitable for the network. Meanwhile, there are such topics being talked about during the programs that may be important for the state, but not very profitable businesswise. As examples, we can list progarms for children, scientific-cultural programs, educational programs which can be looked at as “social goods”. The private sector will not provide resources for that. Nowadays, people want to watch programs which kill time, shows, etc. (I must say that in some foreign countries, for example France, private television networks are required to reflect upon certain topics, but that doesn’t exist in Armenia). This is what we lack and it is the job of Public Television to take care of that. Public Television must be directed towards all ages of society.
After all, people pay for that in the form of budget money. For example, this year, Public Television received 3 billion drams which is a pretty large amount in our country, bigger than, let’s say, the money foreseen for returning the deposits. Logically, we can predict that Public Television must solve more important issues rather than providing money to thousands of pensioners. Is that really so? Everything seems to be normal if we look at the perspective of all the programs for killing time, sports and other programs. Of course, if you compare Armenian Public Television with the foreign TV channels, here we see a difference in quality, but our public television “is going along well”. But there is one program that does the work of all the other workers at the tv network-of course we are talking about the “HyeLur” (Armenian News) program.
We all know that we can’t change anything by substituting “public” for “state” and that this channel will always go along with whatever the authorities say. However, everything must be done adequately and not make it apparent, or talk about some people with hatred and the opposite, or refer to the authorities whenever something good happens in the country and not say anything besides praising them. That is like “serving the authorities”, in other words, very bad PR. As a tv viewer, I must say that it is pathetic to see some boy (or girl) on television and see him laugh or be ignorant towards someone (or some people) who are much higher than him or her with their knowledge, experience, and at that moment the tv show host forgets that he is simply a host, nothing more. If you visit the Armenian Public Television web site, you will read the following words: “The main points for our news policy are to defend the interests of the individual, society and the state, set exemplary standards for the state informational field…”
How else can you not defend the rights of the individual? I will go further with this. During the first stage of the 2003 Armenian presidential elections, Robert Kocharyan received 50% less votes. According to the data given by the Central Electoral Committee, the president received 700,808 votes in the first stage; as for oppositionists S. Demirchyan, A. Geghamyan, A. Karapetyan, V. Manukyan and A. Sargsyan, they all got 707,635 votes put together. Even according to that data, these candidates received more than 700 thousand votes. Who are the ones that appear as targets on “HyeLur”?-of course, the abovementioned political figures. And parallel to the obscene comments about those political figures made by “HyeLur”, the rights of the 700 thousand voters are not defended. Many simply get frustrated by watching that news program and change the channel because their health is much more important to them.
Today, all television networks treat the authorities well, however, the most nervewrecking television network is Armenian Public Television with its “HyeLur” news program. No other network goes over the limit like that network. Besides that, in contrast to the other television networks that are independent and do not depend on the state for financing, Public Television depends on the citizens paying taxes to the state. The people paying those taxes are in the abovementioned 707,635 people who were not that satisfied that they are getting frustrated because of them. But what can they do about it?
There are many issues. For example, who can be happy about the fact that the rights “defenders” violate the citizens’ rights or that a delegation of 100 people travel abroad and call that work when what they are really doing is enjoying themselves and then talking about the end of poverty…
Is it clear now as to how we pay for something which we not only need, but also, something which in some cases may even put our health in danger.