In Which I Remember Why I Am Not an Economist

Hey kids! Now that we've all enjoyed our Roald Dahl, it's time to get down to the supreme fun of a libertarian's book about the globalizing forces of culture analyzing the net benefits and costs of global homogenization! It's like the dessert bar at Old Country Buffet! Let's eat til we ralph.

So. I'm a chap who's never taken an economics course. As such, I'm pretty well out of my depth in tackling this work (a Christmas present from my little brother, who read it in a class last year and found it very interesting). That being said, I'm totally fascinated by global culture, and about three thousand percent in the camp that feels that the spread of McDonald's to every colorful locale is detrimental to the soul of Mankind, so the book felt like a necessary read -- Cowen's hypothesis being that while globalization of culture (i.e. freer and more aggressive trade of artistic goods, from film to textiles to music) can have a destructive impact, its overall effect is to increase diversity within cultures while diminishing diversity across cultures. The argument goes: if a McDonald's opens in a hypothetically pristine Paris, Parisians now get the option of McDonalds AND the option of a corner bistro. Whereas Americans see less difference across the border of these two cultures now, the French enjoy the benefit of greater choice. Cowen's not afraid to occasionally admit that this has a detrimental effect (indeed, he concedes early in the book that China's allowing Tibet to be opened to tourists might more effectively destroy Tibetan principles and culture than did decades of oppression), but on the whole he sees the impulse against cultural globalization as a bourgeois, tourist's game. Essentially, that only the "superior" culture benefits from an idealized restraint in cultural exchange, by absorbing that of the smaller culture while on holiday while denying the smaller culture the benefit of the larger culture's technological advancements and etc.

It's frankly a dense read. I'm certain I'd find it less so with a more solid (that is to say, "in any way extant") economic background, but Cowen doesn't help matters with his stylistic approach. Rather than commingle the two viewpoints he embraces (cultural exchange destroys AND cultural exchange enriches), he tends to tackle the one and then the other. So you have chapters on Indian weaving that begin with an admission that the import of British textiles was hugely threatening to India's homegrown, generally hand-made industry, and that in the wake of all of this, Indian weavers came out significantly disadvantaged financially. He then pivots and argues that the British textiles were of a cheaper nature, more about the bottom line than the craft, and that it pushed Indian weavers to make only high-quality product that was more profitable. Apart from the apparent contradiction in our intended response to the impact on Indian weavers, it seems like a self-defeating argument: if arguing for globalization improving artistic standards, it's not in your best interests to acknowledge that the market gets flooded with an inferior product. Cowen's later accusation that Ghandi's stance against British textile incursions was hypocritical since Indian weavings had steamrolled their neighboring countries is not particularly compelling, in and of itself. Sure let's say Ghandi was a big fat hypocrite (it's easy to say and fun to do!). But can't it be that both cultures are in the wrong? Or, at a minimum, isn't it clear that flooding a market with an artisinal product made by craftsmen is in some substantial way different from flooding a market with an inferior product with limited artistic value whose main virtue is its cheapness?

This is all going on much longer than it ought to, so I'll wrap up here. In general, Cowen's arguments are a bit sprawling and omnidirectional to make the book a clean, clear read; ideologically I find myself frustrated by it, and some of the work feels shoddy (in particular Cowen's argument of television's detrimental effect on moviegoing in Europe, which draws figures from suspiciously cherry-picked years: 1956-1962 for Germany, 1967-1986 in the UK, 1956-1988 for France, because we all know how all Germans had adopted the television five years before the Brits had ever even heard of it). But then, I'm not trained in the stuff, nor do I have the temperment to really educate myself, so I guess it's a wash.