The U.S. bought Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867 for $7.2 million. At the time the purchase was derided as “Seward’s Folly,” but today it’s common to compare the purchase price with Alaska’s gross state product of $45 billion and claim it a resounding success.ow that that doesn’t appear to be the case,you can go into more complicated reasons why it was or was not a good decision. But in the case of Alaska, it could been simply the case that it was profitable using any calculus, and knowing that that isn’t the case is indeed knowledge.