Review
In a wide-ranging, brilliant, and thought-provoking book, Tyler Cowen has come to the cultural defense of capitalism. He argues that the record of free markets in supporting culture can stand comparison with that of any other system, from feudalism to communism...Cowen is amazingly learned, both in scholarship about the arts and in the arts themselves. He moves effortlessly from painting to music to literature. He also navigates skillfully between high and low culture, whether he is comparing the great piano virtuoso Franz Liszt to a contemporary stage performer like Prince, or showing how the second part of "Don Quixote" follows the same logic as do movie sequels like "The Empire Strikes Back" or "Terminator 2"...This is a very important and original book. -- Paul Cantor "American Enterprise"
Product Description
Does the market economy encourage or discourage music, literature, and the visual arts? Do economic forces of supply and demand help or harm the pursuit of creativity? This book seeks to redress the late 1990s intellectual and popular balance and to encourage a more favourable attitude towards the commercialization of culture that we associate with modernity. Economist, Martin Tyler Cowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting both high and low culture, helping consumers and artists refine their tastes, and paying homage to the past by capturing, reproducing, and disseminating it.