|
A Frenchman rents a Hollywood movie. A Thai
schoolgirl mimics Madonna. Saddam Hussein chooses Frank
Sinatra's "My Way" as the theme song for his fifty-fourth
birthday. It is a commonplace that globalization is subverting
local culture. But is it helping as much as it hurts? In
this strikingly original treatment of a fiercely debated
issue, Tyler Cowen makes a bold new case for a more sympathetic
understanding of cross-cultural trade. Creative Destruction
brings not stale suppositions but an economists eye to bear
on an age-old question: Are market exchange and aesthetic
quality friends or foes? On the whole, argues Cowen in clear
and vigorous prose, they are friends. Cultural "destruction"
breeds not artistic demise but diversity.
Through an array of colorful examples from
the areas where globalization's critics have been most vocal,
Cowen asks what happens when cultures collide through trade,
whether technology destroys native arts, why (and whether)
Hollywood movies rule the world, whether "globalized"
culture is dumbing down societies everywhere, and if national
cultures matter at all. Scrutinizing such manifestations
of "indigenous" culture as the steel band ensembles
of Trinidad, Indian hand-weaving, and music from Zaire,
Cowen finds that they are more vibrant than ever -- thanks
largely to cross-cultural trade.
For all the pressures that market forces
exert on individual cultures, diversity typically increases
within society, even when cultures become more like each
other. Trade enhances the range of individual choice, yielding
forms of expression within cultures that flower as never
before. While some see cultural decline as a half-empty
glass, Cowen sees it as a glass half-full with the stirrings
of cultural brilliance. Not all readers will agree, but
all will want a say in the debate this exceptional book
will stir.
Tyler Cowen in Professor of Economics
at George Mason University, where he directs the Mercatus
Center and the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy.
His books include What Price Fame?, In Praise
of Commercial Culture, and Risk and Business Cycles.
|
