I hail from the region of Bengal in Eastern India, the land of fierce feminity and its celebration, which takes the form of a much-awaited yearly ten-day long festivity, the Durga Pujo. It’s pomp is equivalent to Christmas in Christian majority nations, Nowruz, Eid and Dia de los Muertos altogether, or rather, given the stampedes and Pandals, and the flock of people exploring the streets of the city for festive joy with the strength of entire nations, lacking an equivalent in the first place. Given the tremendous scale of these festivities, it is no wonder that the extent to which the economy of a region is both invigorated and disaffected with increased consumption, production, money flows and their leakages, is tremendous . Much like the Olympics, the economic cost and benefits of such festivals are something worth discussing.

Let me take the example of the festivity of my home turf, the Durga Pujo. In 2022,  The West Bengal State Exchequer had spent Rs. 60000 per Puja committee (clubs organizing the festivities of different neighborhoods). West Bengal had a total of 40092 Puja committees, which meant a total expenditure of Rs. 220,55,20,000. The chief minister was quoted in 2022 saying, “The State Treasury is empty. But I hope Maa Durga will fill up our treasury. Last year, we had given Rs. 50000 to each Puja organizer. This year we are increasing it to Rs. 60000 to each club”. This was a public admission of the lack of funds in the State treasury due to extreme expenditure and provision of subsidies for non-necessity purposes. However, the tremendous spending was also matched by corresponding increase in consumption and overall bolstering of the provincial economy. In fact, the Bengal Durga Pujo economy crossed the Rs. 5000 crore mark, a 54 percent increase from the 2019 findings of Rs. 32377 crore by the British Council, IIT KGP, and Queen Mary’s University (in which retail accounted for  80-85 per cent of the total Durga Puja economy, and the food and beverages sector had a share of around 7-8 per cent, while erection of marquees, decorations, lighting, entertainment, advertising and others accounted for the rest, according to The Business Standard.). The festivities accounted for 2.58 percent of the state GDP in 2019 according to a study by the British Council for the West Bengal government, and only grew as a percentage in the post-covid year of 2022. “Compared to the length and breadth of Durga Pujas, we are sure that its contribution to the state economy is either at par or bigger than the contribution of Rio de Janeiro carnival to the Brazilian city’s economy, and the cherry blossom festival in Japan,” said Debanrayan Sarkar, a former professor and economist at Presidency University”.

Given that the phenomena of this huge boost in the local economy in and around the period of festivities is mostly a consumption-led activity, the positive spillover effect justifies the government spending accompanying this cultural activity, as the festival effect leads to an upsurge in employment of mostly irregular labour, cottage industry workers, and a general increase in employment guided by increase in production caused by a surge in consumption.

However, my point lies on the specific “spillover effect” created by festivals instead of pure monetary gains and losses, the social satisfaction, the intangible aesthetics and emotions which are nearly as important as food, clothing and shelter, and just as important as transport infrastructure, industrialization, and various other traditionally economically benefitting activities.  A watch or a new car can do no good to a person perpetually dissatisfied spiritually or mentally, thus representing a failure of rational consumer behavior.

 Positive externality is a benefit received by the stakeholders of an economy, as an indirect effect of the activities of another actor. They  arise when one party, such as a business, makes another party better off but does not receive any compensation for doing so, as a spillover effect on society as a whole, thus benefitting the society as a social benefit. It is usually exemplified by reduction in pollution, consumption of healthier products, and a generally cleaner, healthier and “better” (subjective term) environment and society. However, even though positive externalities are beneficial to society, are categorized as market failure in economics. This begs the question: are economic costs and benefits, price mechanisms and strict adherence to ruinous equilibriums all that matter?

The economies of the world and how we perceive and achieve solutions, or rather, the choice of problems we identify to be fixed, is in some cases flawed. We prioritize the tangible over the intangible, scorn the increased funding for public media, cultural events, and praise the increased spending for roads and bridges. While the latter has almost unanimous reason for celebration, the former receives scorn in an unjustified degree.

Are we becoming grey, not due to complexity but due to monotone? With the advent of AI and incidents such as the Writer’s Strike in the USA, are we placing decreasing importance on pleasure and leisure? We must treat intangible spiritual satisfactions as positive externalities but not as market failure, as it is anything but so. Though these phrases have been exasperatingly used countless times, I feel that they are worth repeating- let us make art instead of more programming and robots. Let us chase rational consumer satisfaction as well as spiritual satisfaction. Let us buy , but let us cherish more. Let us celebrate externalities if they are positive, let us celebrate market “failure” if they allocate the intangible resource of spiritual satisfaction.