If you go to one of the periodic anti-globalization tantrums of the Left, one of the gripes you will hear is that globalization means “American cultural hegemony.” That is, when “we” build McDonald’s restaurants or sell designer jeans in culturally different nations, we’re guilty of undermining, if not destroying, the indigenous culture. Culturecide is nearly as bad as genocide, and we had better stop it!
The protesters have never thought deeply about the relationship between culture and trade (for that is all globalization comes down to — ever-widening trade), but Tyler Cowen certainly has. In his latest book, the George Mason University economics professor carefully analyzes the impact of globalization on culture and finds that, as Schumpeter said of the process of competition generally, it’s a case of creative destruction. When the people of Culture A encounter the range of arts, products, technologies and so forth of Culture B, they may end up abandoning some aspects of their culture for things they prefer from Culture B. But those choices should not be lamented, Cowen argues.
He begins with a crucial insight: “Individuals who engage in cross-cultural exchange expect those transactions to make them better off, to enrich their cultural lives, and to increase their menu of choice. Just as trade typically makes countries richer in material terms, it tends to make them culturally richer as well.” We are used to hearing the antiglobalist crowd rant about “cultural domination,” but the spread of cultural influence is not a case of “ours” somehow taking over “theirs.” It is a matter of individual actions. If Chinese teen-agers like listening to Western pop music rather than traditional Chinese music, for example, that isn’t domination. It’s peaceful change.
Cross-cultural exchanges, Cowen points out, have the effect of increasing diversity within cultures while at the same time decreasing diversity among cultures. Using the example above, when Chinese add American pop music to their cultural mix, they now enjoy a wider range of choices. However, in doing so, the difference between Chinese and American cultures has decreased. That bothers some cultural “purists,” who think it akin to species extinction when “we” start to contaminate the “authentic” cultures in other parts of the world.
Cowen treats the cultural purist position with disdain. First of all, there aren’t really any pure cultures. With many interesting illustrations, he demonstrates that what we may think of as authentic native cultures are the products of considerable cross-cultural exchange, usually having taken place long before people were paying attention to the phenomenon. Consider the steel drum music that is associated with Trinidad. Where did the steel drums come from? The answer is that American military forces brought many with them during World War II. The “authentic” music of Trinidad was based on bamboo percussion, which the Trinidadians happily abandoned when American steel drums became plentiful.
Similarly, Cowen points out that Navaho weavers hardly have a culturally pure product. Their dazzling geometric designs were not indigenous to the Navaho culture, but were borrowed from the ponchos of Spanish shepherds living in northern Mexico, designs which the Spanish had adapted from the Moors. Moreover, once machine-spun yarn and chemical dyes became available, the Navaho eagerly experimented with and began using them.
So the notion that there are “authentic” cultures turns out to be erroneous. But even if we arbitrarily denominate the current cultures of China, Trinidad, the Navaho, etc. as “pure,” so what? Does it follow that Western antiglobalists are doing those people a favor in trying to protect them against contamination from Western influences? Cowen has no patience for that argument, writing that “poorer societies should not be required to serve as diversity slaves.” That’s what the elitist position comes down to. People in all those exotic places with their quaint, “authentic” cultures should be denied the opportunity to adopt aspects of Western culture that they would like, in order that some elitists can bask in the warm glow of knowing that they have helped protect against the ravages of capitalism.
Besides its resounding call for a laissez-faire approach to culture, Creative Destruction has a delightful side dish for the reader: some embarrassing truths about one of the most overrated men of the 20th century, namely Gandhi. Gandhi railed against Indian purchases of British textiles, calling them “defiling,” and “our greatest outward pollution.” He insisted that Indians, no matter how poor, to burn their foreign garments. Evidently, Gandhi regarded Indian weaving as “authentic” and foreign textiles as somehow a desecration of Indian culture. Cowen has sport in pointing out that “Western technologies provided critical pieces of the economic network behind Indian handweaving.” Gandhi comes off like a cranky authoritarian.
Antiglobalist windbags need “issues” to grumble about. The supposed destruction of native cultures is one of those issues. Thanks to Tyler Cowen for showing that it’s nothing but hot air.