Depreciation of Goals in Public Governance (a Scholarly Invention)

Abstract

Discounting can be perceived as an economic allegory if transferred to the social sphere. According to it, a value is depreciated the further in future it is located. Does this mean that strategic goals, being far ahead in time, are devalued because of their remoteness? In seeking to reject such a paradox, a distinction is made below between discounting of goals in operational and tactical management on the one hand and discounting in the strategic field on the other. It seems that in operational and tactical management the goals depreciate with moving further in time, while in strategic governance it is the other way around – there is an increase of their value as a consequence of their remoteness in the future.