Economics of Culture

While writing the previous post, it occurred to me that the phrase 'economics of culture' was worth some elaboration. Here, then, is a rather meandering attempt to unpack the phrase... Culture is a famously vague term, meaning to some the total of everyday practices ('everything you don't have to think about when you wake up in the morning,' a former professor of mine defined it as). To others, culture designates a much narrower category of elite literary and artistic production, below which are various levels of popular culture, sub-cultures, or non-cultures. But in either case, the creation and dissemination of 'culture' in any society must be economically viable. In order to survive in the memory of a society, cultural products must have a large enough group of people who recognize a product as having a value worth propagating, preserving, and imitating.

Cultural products can be highly idiosyncratic--the product of unpredictable individual genius, greatly underdetermined by social or economic context. Or they can be produced by groups or individuals who carefully tailor the products to match a perceived demand. There is no predicting which type of cultural product will at any one time, in the present or future, be considered 'good' or 'bad,' which will be popular, which will be favored by elite groups (people with 'good taste'). And the status of a product can change dramatically over time, moving back and forth across from popular to elite, dwelling in both at time, shifting from popularity in one social group to another.

There is, then, a high degree of contingency in individual cultural products, but in general there must also be larger economic and social structures that help determine the overall content of a society's culture. There have been periods of history known for their efflorescence of certain types of cultural products. The new painting styles of the Renaissance, for example, or the development of literary realism in the 19th century. What were the economic and social structures that made such bursts of creativity possible? This question is not only of historical interest, but is at the heart of debates--or at least the moral rather than strictly legal aspects of the debate--over intellectual property rights, file sharing and the music industry.

The proponents of file sharing and digital distribution, such as myself, argue for fewer limits on such technology because it allows for a greater variety of music to reach consumers. If individual artists have fairly simple and inexpensive access to the means of music production and international distribution, they have a greater chance of enrolling a large enough group of fans around the world to support the continued production of their music. The music industry--and many very popular recording artists--argues that file sharing robs artists of their right to control and profit from their creations. In their view, without greater copyright protections (both legal and technological), artists will no longer be able to support themselves through sales of their recordings, and so creativity will be stiffled.

Although, as the 'Rockonomics' paper makes clear, very few recording artists make money through their recordings; most gain income by touring rather than record sales. The musicians losing money because of file sharing are, at most, an elite few at the very top of record sales lists.

Brazil, Gilberto, and Intellectual Property

Two recent items caught my interest in the economics of culture--especially the music business--and show how decentralized, digital music distribution is part of a larger global fight against overly aggressive intellectual property protection. The NPR program Marketplace recently featured a short piece on Brazil's multi-front defense of its national interest against international IP laws. (You can listen to the report through the Marketplace Archives.) In the 1990s Brazil threated to produce its own generic versions of anti-AIDS drugs if pharmaceutical companies didn't lower their prices. The drug makers caved in, and now Brazil has a much more extensive effort to develop alternatives to the intellectual property rights regime favored by such would-be international hegemons like the US and Microsoft.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has switched government computer systems from Microsoft Windows to license-free Linux operating systems and open-source software packages. Programs are also in places to help home computer users obtain open-source software, and to open free open-source computer centers available to the poor. The United Nations will soon consider a Brazilian proposal to limit international copyright laws that, Brazil says, work to funnel money from poorer, developing nations, to the developed world.

The Bush administration protested the UN decision, and in April gave Brazil an ultimatum to either crackdown on copyright infringement in the country or lose US most-favored-nation status, which makes exporting products to the US much easier. Spokesmen for trade groups representing corporations like Microsoft say Brazil's open-source policies will be more costly in the long run, because open-source software is harder to use and requires more customer support. (Oh, if only everything were as user-friendly as Windows!) What usually happens, they contend, is that computer users soon abandon open-source software for bootleg copies of proprietary programs. In their view Brazil's policies are mostly rhetoric, obscuring the fact that Brazil is one of the world's worst violators of international copyright laws.

But computer software and pharmaceuticals are not the only areas where Brazil is encouraging consumers to adopt the open-source model. The Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil--yes, the musician of 'Girl from Ipenema' fame--is promoting digital music downloading as a way for artists to reach directly to their fans, avoiding involvement with large music companies. Gilberto says that music downloading helps his music spread to new audiences, and he recoups money with his concert appearances. He and other artists are part of a international movement to promote 'Digital Culture.' (For more on Gilberto and Brazil's open-source policies, see this November 2004 feature in Wired, and this January item from Common Dreams.)

This brings me to a fascinating look at the economics of the music industry in a paper by Marie Connolly and Alan B. Krueger of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper, titled 'Rockonomics,' is (appropriately) available for download from the NBER website. I first learned of it through a post on Barry Ritholtz's web log The Big Picture. Ritholtz is Chief Market Strategist for money management firm and he posts regularly on the music biz, in addition to other economics topics. I highly recommend his blog, and if you visit be sure to check out some of his less serious 'essays and effluvia' on rock music.

Whether or not the American music industry's current ails are due to file sharing, it's clear from the Rockonomics paper that bands that sign with major labels are pretty much screwed unless they sell millions of records and/or go on tour and sell a lot of t-shirts at their concerts. The paper does not address the advent of low-cost consumer electronics and software that allow for high-quality home recording and independent distribution, but it seems to me that the economics of large-label record production make any way around the established industry very attractive.

Support War Resisters

For those of us who oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the U.S. military, times have been hard. No matter how bad things go on the ground, it seems like no amount of demonstrating or letter-writing has much effect on the truth-deaf Bush administration. On the other hand, what about the courageous actions of war resisters within the U.S. military? Perhaps a more effective way to curb immoral U.S. military aggression might be if more soldiers and sailors refused to go over to Iraq.

I think we should all hope and pray for more of these war resisters, who are undoubtedly facing endless derision and strong penalties for making a stand of conscientious objection. Just a few days ago was the National Day of Action for GI Resisters, described here. One of the resisters, Pablo Paredes, was recently tried in San Diego military court for his refusal to go to Iraq, with an interesting outcome. (His own website is here.) There are many others too. The legal argument for resistance is nicely laid out here.

Any ideas on what we can do to support and encourage these war resisters in a meaningful way? It is quite possible that some forms of support might themselves be regarded as illegal (though, in my view, eminently moral), thus perhaps opening up a way for sharing the burdens and risks of war resistance in some small way. But what can we do that would be effective in encouraging war resistance?

9/11 Revisited

I've been doing some reading of books relating to 9/11, which I can now review briefly for readers of our blog. (You're probably weary of seeing my last book review post up for so long anyway...and since most of our regular contributors are out of commission right now, it'll have to be me to change that!)

The first book is Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties (New York, 2004). Despite the sensational title, this book is really a fairly mainstream summary of U.S. involvement in the Middle East since the 1970s, with extra focus on the Bush and Saud families. (Unger was one of Michael Moore's big sources for making Fahrenheit 9/11.) This book is about far more than just the Bush & Saud families, however...it is really a first-rate summary of what we know about U.S. involvement in the making of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, among other things. I think it would be good citizenship reading for anyone in the U.S., regardless of political stance. Unger seems very scrupulous with his sources and is reluctant to make big leaps or speculations without hard evidence. Fact-challenged right-wingers (such as those who still believe Iraq had WMD, etc.) would probably view this book as way out there, but in reality it is pretty mainstream in that it sticks to what we can know with reasonable certainty.

The second book, on the other hand, is something else altogether. David Ray Griffin's The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005) follows up on his earlier book, The New Pearl Harbor, which argued that the Bush Administration may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks or possibly even helped carry them out. Griffin does a good job of pointing out the flaws in the official 9/11 commission, and I must admit that I agree with his view (and the evidence he presents for it) that the Commission systematically failed to substantively or seriously address any of the allegations made by "conspiracy theorists." (Griffin himself rejects the label "conspiracy theorist", rightly arguing that the mainstream view also requires a belief in a conspiracy solely among a certain small group of Al-Qaeda operatives.) But where does this leave us? I must confess that I find myself torn between the mainstream view and Griffin's view. Probably the truth is somewhere in between...the series of events that transpired on 9/11 is, as Griffin argues, not convincingly explained by the conventional account. (Read the book for more evidence on this...) On the other hand, Griffin's alternative explanation also has some holes, such as the problem of collusion by so many U.S. governmental agents who must have known that something strange was going on. In all likelihood, something is being covered up, but what and how much is hard to say. We are dealing with a basic problem of citizen knowledge here. Anyone who has seen power up close knows that the official story told to the public about anything is almost always covering up some embarrassing (or possibly criminal) truths. But how can we figure out what is really going on? I, for one, choose to side with Griffin in his call for being open minded to alternative explanations, even if we grant them a low degree of probability at the start. The certainty with which many people reject even considering such alternatives flies in the face of critical inquiry in a democratic society. The 9/11 Commission was hardly equipped or inclined to really deal with the substantive issues lurking under the surface. The Bush Administration's collusion with 9/11, in my view, was probably a lot more passive and negligent than active and plotting, but the doubts of many Americans will never be put to rest without addressing the discrepancies and evidence for alternatives head on and honestly. (Note: I should also add that Griffin is a seminary professor, who from all firsthand accounts I've heard is a nice, sincere, and thoughtful person, not some kind of raving lunatic who lives in a fortified compound plotting against the government...)

A Moral Battle Worth Fighting: Reflections on Juliet Schor's Latest Book

I just finished reading Juliet Schor's latest book, Born To Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (2004). Like Schor's previous works, including The Overworked American and The Overspent American, Born To Buy is a readable and thought provoking look at recent changes in American culture and life. In this case, the moral clarion call is especially compelling.

Schor basically argues that the consumer culture shaped by commercial advertising has degraded the lives of children, leading to serious declines in quality of life and making parenting more difficult. She looks at television advertising, commercial penetration into schools and other public spaces, and the "new intrusive research"--much of it drawing on ethnographic methods--prying into the inner worlds of children to figure out how to get them to buy more stuff.

I think this is a good example of an issue that can bring together concerned Christians (and others) across the lines of political ideology. We all recoil against the commercialization of childhood. Materialism and the pursuit of wealth are corroding our society, and this is especially heartbreaking when we can see it happening to children. We need to make it easier for parents to be good parents by saying "no": keeping advertising out of schools (especially Chris Whittle's demonic Channel One!), banning television ads to children, etc.

One of the more interesting points made by Schor through her survey data was that even in middle-class, suburban settings, parental attempts to resist their children's entreaties to have more stuff only resulted in increasing child-parent tensions and disaffection, not in changing outcomes much in the end. (Although getting rid of television sets seems to be more promising!) So, yes, parental responsibility has something to do with it, but we must as a society take some community responsibility for protecting children against advertisers intruding into their lives so much and shaping their preferences for bad food, violent toys, and other harmful things they are manipulated into coveting.

An interesting angle that Schor doesn't address is the global context of all this, which has at least two different aspects. First of all, many people around the world, including children, are being sold on the idea that American-style consumer goods will bring them happiness, which is in contradiction to studies that link life fulfillment and happiness not with wanting more stuff, but with having less materialistic attitudes. Second, all this harmful materialistic consumption is a huge part of the environmental resource problems the world is facing nowadays. Those of us in the U.S. cannot continue to consume so much and expect the rest of the world to consume less, yet we were promoting these very destructive attitudes with a vengeance to our children. Isn't it time for us to join a moral battle worth fighting, for our society's children? (And for the world as a whole?)