"Preserving the irreplaceable value of ..." works great as a personal motivation or a mission statement, but terribly as an explicit rule. It's the same problem as carbon offsets - if there's a formula for converting intangible values into cold hard cash, people will exploit the definition of the intangibles to make money.

This is largely because we’ve built a philosophy that eschews any concept of a collective or a people or a culture or a future.

Which legal and financial instruments have defended the City of London itself from being auctioned for parts?

Subsets of culture are preserved, packetized & traded daily. Even StubHub has a "food festival" category.