STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 25 November 2013

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19. is economist tyler owen the next tom friedman?

http://www.nationofchange.org/economist-tyler-cowen-next-tom-friedman-1385380906



I just had a new piece published in Salon.com about Tyler Cowen, the libertarian economist who’s been described as “the next Tom Friedman.” Cowen is always an interesting and entertaining read, more so than Friedman, but he shares Friedman’s infatuation with technology – and his belief that the middle class is disposable. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

When I was in grade school boys were encourage to read the “Tom Swift Jr.” adventure novels. (On the other side of the gender ghetto, the girls had “Nancy Drew.”) The books told the story of young Tom, teenage inventor and heir to the Swift Enterprises fortune, in tales like “Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober” and “Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar.”

Tom Swift Jr. mirrored a nation’s self-image in the 1950s and 1960s. He was rich, educated and destined for great things. Nothing was impossible and there was no problem technology couldn’t solve.

We won’t say economist/writer Tyler Cowen is Tom Swift Jr. That distinction may already belong to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But Cowen and Friedman have a shared worldview that, like the Swift Jr. books, sees technology as the answer to our ills. But their future comes with a new twist: It will be a great party, but not everybody’s invited.

Uh-oh, there’s a new Thomas Friedman!

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/22/thomas_friedman_with_a_better_computer_meet_tyler_cowen/

***SNIP

Give him points for audacity. Cowen says of himself in “Creative Destruction,” “I ask some fundamental questions about culture in a market economy. This trade and cultural product support the artistic diversity of the world, or destroy it?”

His response won’t surprise you. Cowen makes the questionable claim that “economic growth usually leads to a reallocation of creative activity to the dynamic and growing artistic sectors …”

But Cowen’s own case studies can betray him. Consider African pop music. Cowen claims that “traditional African drumming … is being replaced by a variety of creative African urban music based on acoustic and electric guitars.”

Not so fast. There was a brief period matching Cowen’s description, but it preceded the major waves of globalization in Africa. It was a good time for African pop: American soul music was fused with Latin dance styles, vibrant electric guitars and traditional percussion, giving rise to styles like high life in Ghana, soukous in Zaire, chimurenga in Zimbabwe and mbaqanga in South Africa.