Globalism & Culture
How has the global movement of capital affected
culture? To put it briefly, it has not affected it well. The competitive
pressures brought about by the free flow of capital has persuaded many companies
to back out of their cultural commitments. This, combined with the progressive
infantilization of the cultural sense among the elite classes has inflicted
untold harm on cultural institutions in America.
The restricted form of capitalism that emerged as
a result of the Great Depression had at least one advantage: by protecting
"incumbent" industries and thereby allowing for quasi-monopolistic profits, it
enabled a number of corporations to devote resources to culture. One examples
immediately comes to the mind of those of us who grew up in Southern California:
the Gas Company's commercial-free evenings concerts on KFAC, the once famous
classical music station in Los Angeles that was involved in the rich musical
life of Los Angeles in the forties and fifties, when such luminaries as Otto
Klemperer, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor Stravinsky lived and worked in Southern
California. In the early nineties, KFAC was bought out by a large corporation.
For a while, this multimedia corporation continued to play classical music on
the station. But soon it became apparent that the returns were not what they
needed to be in a world of global competition. Classical music simply didn't pay
— or didn't pay enough. So the only commercial classical station in
Southern California, a station with more than 50 years of history, was promptly
destroyed, replaced by whatever noxious blend of noise was passing for music
among the denizens of pop. (Curiously, the move to pop was initially a huge
disaster, as the station plummeted from 35th place in the ratings to 60th place;
but corporate moguls kept switching among pop formats until they found one that
tickled the degenerate acoustical palates of Southern California listeners, and
soon the station was up near the top, rolling in their ill-gotten
gains.)
Though their action was
despicable, there was little they could do about it. The competitive pressures
brought about by globalism and the free-flow of capital make it necessary for
businesses to wring every last dollar out of their operations. Otherwise, there
stock price will fall and they'll be taken over by some other management group,
even more hell-bent on profits. Undoubtedly, this does wonders for efficiency
and productivity. It also provides a most useful check on the depredations of
government into the economy. But alas, no blessing is altogether pure. We are
much wealthier today than we were even forty years ago, but we are poorer in
spirit. The obsession with the bottom line, made so critical by the competition
of foreign capital, has caused us to increasingly turn our backs on the demands
of high culture.
Look what happened to
Columbia Records. This distinguished company had made the lion's share of George
Szell's recordings in the Cleveland Orchestra, of Leonard Bernstien's recordings
with the New York Philharmonic, of Eugene Ormandy's recordings with the
Philadelphia Orchestra, and of the late stereo recordings of Bruno Walter and
Igor Stravinsky. Yet despite this owning this impressive legacy of great
recordings, they were bought out by Sony in the early nineties. At first, Sony
made a real commitment to classical music. But again, per usual, they found it
didn't pay and began losing interest. Today, they mostly produce crossover
albums. A mere handful of Columbia Record's extraordinary recorded legacy
remains available, and some famous recordings, such as Eugene Ormandy's classic
recording of the Prokofiev Sixth Symphony, have never seen the light of day
under Sony.
Hence, economic forces are
conspiring with the general decay in educational standards to bring us to the
brink of a great cultural dark ages, comparable to what was experienced by
Western Europe in the Dark Ages. Can a technological society survive if it has
no culture, no beauty, no light? We may soon find out.
Posted: Tue - October 21, 2003 at 09:34 PM