Reflections After the Tragedy. The Value of a Human Life

However much one might like to think that the human being is the most valuable thing there is, one must unfortunately recognise that the value of a human life in monetary terms has also been calculated. I first encountered this concept while unravelling the self-directed activities of the Sarkandaugava oil terminals, manifested as health-harmful pollution and odour emissions. When officials ran out of logical argumentation, they began appealing to a concept called "economic compromise". Here it is: the oil terminals in the free port generate a cash flow, profit, pay taxes and create jobs (and tax revenue too). These estimates are based on quite concrete figures. However, officials have always proven adept enough not to reveal what is on the other side of the scales. No, it is not the abstract right of residents to a favourable environment. For something to be compared with something else, they must share the same units of measurement. Thus, in speaking of a compromise, it was evidently the value of residents in monetary terms that was being discussed.

I have so far been unable to ascertain the value of a human life. The Road Traffic Safety Directorate, speaking about fatalities in road traffic accidents, did let slip that one fatality causes the state losses of 200,000 lats. Let us take this value as the base value. The potential (but unrealised) value also exists for children, and their loss is equated to the maximum loss, i.e., 200,000 lats. During a person's working-age years, the value decreases with each year and consists only of the remaining working-age years. Pensioners and those incapable of work, meanwhile, no longer generate value.

The value of a human life can be broken down into smaller units - namely, value per year. If working age runs from 20 to 65, then dividing 200,000 by 45 yields ~4,500 lats/year, or 375 lats/month. This sum is equivalent to the average wage in the country, and it becomes evident how such Road Traffic Safety Directorate calculations were arrived at. Moreover, from the state's point of view, it is entirely irrelevant by what means this money was earned, whereas for the government and local authority, of course, it matters how much is paid in taxes.

An interesting nuance: the calculations use not the taxes paid, as a simple reader might assume, but the entirety of money earned. This has a certain logic, since earned money, although belonging to a specific person, is put into circulation by purchasing food and household goods, while the unspent portion is mostly kept in a bank. But in a bank too, in a manner invisible to its owner, it is put to work. Notably, if a person were to keep in a bank everything earned over a lifetime, in the event of a bank collapse only 70,000 lats, or a third, would be paid out.

Returning to the Zolitūde Maxima. Let us assume 10 million was invested in the building. The building's service life - 10 years; this could also be the time during which the investor hopes to recoup the investment. That yields a building value of 1 million per year. With the building collapsing, the investor sustains a loss of 8 x 1 million, or 8 million, since the building had already been in operation for 2 years. Similarly one can calculate what the "value" of the fatalities is. Given that such calculations are not ethical, we will therefore not calculate a person's remaining value, but take the base value of 200,000. Multiplying by 54 fatalities, we obtain that the state has lost 10.8 million, which is slightly more than the "investment in real estate", and it would therefore be only logical to expect active action from the state to prevent such losses in future.

Are such calculations ethical? My personal opinion - no, they are not. But, as some businessman would say - nothing personal, it's just business.

P.S. Although emotions are the only thing each of us feels acutely and truly, a state cannot be governed on the basis of emotions alone...