Tyler Cowens Creative Destruction - Book Report/Review Example

A Critique of Tyler Cowen’s Creative Destruction Tyler Cowen’s Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World’s Culture is a typical elaborate book that examines the complex issue of trade and traditional cultural orientations. The author elaborates the existence of profit economies and profitless economies with a desire to preserve the cultural identity against the complex interaction of globalization, trade and culture from an economic point of view. As the book opens, Cowen examines the dominance of Haitian music among numerous cross-cultural regions. His arguments in this context arise to dispel popular notions concerning unpopularity of the Haitian entertainment industry that equates the popularity, instead, with the huge financial investments put by French to preserve and nourish their unique culture. As a foregoing issue, Cowen represents trade as an emotional matter as it shapes people’s cultural sense. The concept of choice in a libertarian market, thus, makes it possible for people to choose “their lifestyles, mores and culture” (Cowen 2) as long as the choices that people make do not affect others. There seems to be a universal opinion that globalization is instead taking main manufacturing companies from the production centers and falling to the appeals of popular cultures. There is also an assertion that American culture is corrupting the uniqueness of the most international cultural mix. Cowen goes further to assert that the concept of trade is pegged on two schools of thought: the jihad “bloody politics of identity” and McWorld “bloodless economics for profit” (2). Up to this point, Cowen’s cultural destruction and creativity seem to be more of an optimist one creating with its unique and diversified products and innovations that seek to expand the consumer choice base if at least trade between nations is given a chance to mature. Indeed, the concept of cross-cultural interactions is an advantage in producing new and unique products from diverse cultures. Cowen reaffirms this argument by asserting that the many unique and outstanding products that exist within the local context are in themselves a result of cultural interactions due to globalization. Cowen provides examples of Persian rugs and Zairean songs as a few examples of the products of such interactions. Nevertheless, even with the creations of these unique cultural products, Cowen warns that some of these products can dominate the local culture. However, it is worth noting that most of Cowen’s assertions are derived from the entertainment industry where using analytical suggestions, Cowen presents the benchmarks that propelled Hollywood’s success as an entertainment product, and makes an elaborate comparison in the television world and makes quite strong points for his assertions. Quite informative though, Cowen cements his arguments by examining entertainment industries within various cultural landscapes such as Bollywood and the Hong Kong movie sectors. In explaining why Hollywood rules the world yet the companies are based in southern parts of California, Cowen quickly attributes this to the economic location theory where there exists a large local market, and the perceived impacts of external economies on localizing an industry and the associated issues. A combination of these factors has made Hollywood, according to Cowen, a cultural imperialist, with more of the European revenues being directed to America’s movie industry due to the huge audience of American films in Europe, yet America is not by statistics a leading maker of movies. Further, Cowen attributes the success of Hollywood in other countries arising from the fact that they are able to offer the international audience a value for their money, thus creating a unique blend of a product that can be consumed globally. Thus, America, according to Cowen, has successfully traded their cultural success in a global competitive market, offering a good example how globalization works in the economic sense. Cowen further adds that the huge dominance of American movies in the global markets works to add on the positive attributes of diversity, thus creating a room for local movie industries to place their synergies on the local language and culture compounding the choice menu. The main reason why various societies have been so reluctant in the adoption of foreign cultural products has to do with diminishing the quality and level of meeting the satisfaction of the locals. By virtue of the emotional attachment to the subject of quality, it becomes difficult to judge clearly what is considered a desirable quality and one that is not desirable. Though his discussion of the subject of taste seems logical, one cannot be easily convinced by such. While cross-cultural possibilities have brought with it many innovations and creations, Cowen suggests that those who are opposed to it are in the same way against the concept of globalization in trade as clearly exhibited in their preferences. Equally, the idea of change seems to be a complex issue concerning its benefits and limitations especially when such are examined within the larger cultural context. On a positive note, it has contributed to impressionism. At the same time, change has deteriorated the quality of Jazz driving the uniqueness of jazz past the post-impressionism period bringing with it a taste that many societies do not adore much. But as such change itself seems unavoidable and a society cannot be completely shielded from change, it appears as change is the main factor propelling globalization. Cowen’s analysis seems to be biased towards his choice of materials for inclusion in his case study. Creative works of a literary nature are only used to a smaller extent except for Indian novels and Harlequin narratives, even though these materials are consumed in more foreign cultures than what can be imagined, and so their consideration in this case study would have largely been relevant and informative as they represent original art creations. Even though such alienation may be tolerated given Cowen’s admittance at the preliminary stages of his book, his analysis represents a sample rather than an intensive case study. Though Cowen’s Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures provides a general overview of the cultural and globalization issues from an economic point of view, it offers less assistance in digging deeper into the raised facts, leaving one with the desire to unearth more the complexity of globalization, trade and cultures. Again, Cowen seems inclined to justify globalization with every little issue, and forgets to acknowledge the role of governments in resisting globalization. He examines globalization in the context of how people respond to cultural creations of art and styles, and views the entire issues simply from an ideological perspective where one either supports the concept of free markets or not, and terms critics as mere naysayers. As he summarizes his writing, Cowen suggests that the cosmopolitan view will never prosper since individuals tend to concentrate on the larger hypothetical provisions rather than on the main driving forces. In this respect, he maintains that cultural exchange has reported success on its part because manufacturers are not biased in sticking to rigid cosmopolitan theories. Moreover, the concept of cosmopolitanism should be pioneered merely as a tool for understanding the emerging contemporary societal culture. Up to this point, if one is to clearly appreciate “how globalization is indeed changing the world’s cultures” rather than basing our arguments on the mere issues being changed and the associated effects on trade, one may require a language to perceive and isolate these change mechanisms in the entire process. Yet, it seems quite complex whether such a language is common in the economic perspective. An analysis of Cowen’s work seems to suggest that what economic theories can provide is a higher degree of personal satisfaction and reasons for trade upheavals. Works Cited Cowen, Tyler. "Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures." New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009. Print Read More