Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures, by Tyler Cowen. Princeton University Press, 2002, 179 pages.

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The Market for Culture

by Jane S. Shaw

Tyler Cowen, an Austrian economist at George Mason University, is engaged in an ambitious project — attempting to show how markets benefit the arts. His latest book, "Creative Destruction," is a companion volume to his 1998 book, "In Defense of Commercial Culture." In both books, he argues that markets and trade enrich artistic and cultural expression.

The first book undermined the elitist claim that markets — "commercialism" — downgrade artistic quality by forcing artists to appeal to mass audiences. Summoning evidence from the goldsmiths of the Renaissance to present-day rap music, Cowen showed that markets (and the prosperity and technology they engender) enable artists to appeal to smaller, specialized customer niches, increasing the overall quality and diversity of art and culture.

In a similar vein, "Creative Destruction" argues that global trade contributes to artistic expression, because trade enables artists to find and absorb new technology, new materials, and new ideas. As their artists obtain knowledge and materials from the rest of the world, countries whose people engage in trade develop richer and more diverse art forms, most notably in their urban centers.

This book is ambivalent, however, and its argument more nuanced than the 1998 book. Although Cowen contends that trade spurs artistic diversity within cultures, he recognizes that some cultures suffer. When a small, isolated culture is opened to the world, the impact of other cultures may overwhelm it. Thus, "globalization tends to encourage large, internally diverse polities, rather than small unique ones" (p. 65).

Discussion of these issues is confused and hampered by the lack of consensus on what, exactly, "culture" and "diversity" mean. If a culture is viewed as the characteristics of a people in a geographical place who hold an all-encompassing "ethos" — that is, a world view or Zeitgeist reflected in their religion, art, culture, and political relationships — then trade may be viewed negatively. Trade may damage or even drown this culture. Yet Cowen argues that in modern societies an alternative process of cultural preservation proceeds. Ethnic identity can be nurtured "in a few select and carefully carved-out spheres of life" — such as retaining the Yiddish language or elements of the American Indian heritage — but not as an "all-embracing totality" (69).

Cowen recognizes that some cultures first flourish but then decline upon contact with outsiders. He calls them Minerva cultures, after Hegel's statement, "the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk." Cowen uses the term to mean that cultural expression often flowers just as a culture is beginning its decline, which often happens after an isolated region experiences contact with foreign ideas, materials, and knowledge. To illustrate a Minerva culture, Cowen cites Hawaiian music. Drawing on Pacific, American, and Asian styles and technology as well as indigenous sources, Hawaiian music developed a distinctive style late in the 19th century and early in the 20th, a unique sound that ultimately affected country and western, blues, jazz, and other music. But the efflorescence was brief. "American dominance of the island — in cultural, economic, and political terms — was only a matter of time," says Cowen. "The vital indigenous Hawaiian culture has since dwindled precipitously, having been swamped by the greater numbers and wealth of mainland Americans and Asians" (57).

Yet this concern with a "Minerva culture" is just one downbeat in an argument that generally views trade as contributing to artistic expression. Trade creates new art forms and has been doing so for thousands of years.

Cowen stresses that most "indigenous" arts are really the products of multiple influences developed through assimilation of materials, techniques, and styles that came about through contact with other parts of the world. For example, modern Jamaican music got its start when migrant workers went to the American South in the late 1940s, where they heard rhythm and blues; after they returned, they listened to rhythm and blues on radio broadcasts from New Orleans and Miami. The first Jamaican music "breakthrough," says Cowen, was "ska" tunes in the 1960s, which incorporated influences such as "doo-wop, swing, crooners, and the softer forms of rhythm and blues" (60).

Navajo weaving took off as an art form only after trade provided means and possibilities that weren't initially available. The Navajo had learned weaving from other Indian tribes in the 18th century, using wool from their sheep (the Spanish had brought sheep to the New World) to make blankets. Around 1825, the Navajo weavers were exposed to the patterns of textiles made in Saltillo in northeastern Mexico. These distinctive and colorful patterns reflected styles worn by Spanish shepherds, originally influenced by Moorish designs. Inspired by the Mexican patterns, Navajo weavers turned utilitarian blankets into works of art. As they developed their craft, they incorporated colors that weren't available through their vegetable dyes by unraveling cloths made industrially in Europe and using the yarn to weave blankets in their own style.

One of the important influences of trade, of course, comes from patrons. The renewal of Navajo art in the 20th century — not just its blankets, but also jewelry and paintings — came about because Navajo artists began to sell their art in ways more typical of modern artists. "Navajo creators deal with the external marketplace in similar ways as do mainstream American artists," says Cowen (70). They become known as individual artists by name, not just as anonymous craftsmen. "We have seen a Navajo cultural revival, but on terms that are partially Western rather than thoroughly Navajo in the earlier sense of that word," he writes (70).

Cowen also observes that the decline of some cultural activities, such as Papua sculpture, may disappoint wealthy American or European buyers. But the decline may occur because the artists have found better opportunities. "Bringing a shopping mall to Papua New Guinea gives the Papuans more choice, but it may give the American collector of Papuan sculptures less choice, if it weakens the inspiration behind those sculptures by changing the underlying social ethos" (146).

Cowen's message is that trade enriches and multiplies cultural expression within most societies, even though it may weaken or deplete geographically-based cultures. "The question is not about more or less diversity per se, but rather what kind of diversity globalization will bring. Cross-cultural exchange tends to favor diversity within society, but to disfavor diversity across societies" (15).

The chief weakness of "In Defense of Commercial Culture" is that it doesn't have enough examples. Cowen examines a few topics in depth, such as music, weaving, and cuisine, to illustrate the cultural impact of trade. And those discussions are fascinating. But he does not discuss representational art such as painting, sculpture, and photography, and performance arts (except for movies, which he discusses brilliantly) are also given little consideration. By selecting such a narrow palette, especially compared to his previous book, he makes us wonder if the story of trade's impact fully holds up. I think it does, but I'd like to see more. Certainly, there is room for another book — or at least a few papers by graduate students. We have a lot to learn about culture, both ours and others'.

© Copyright 2008, Liberty Foundation

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