Commerce and Culture

[From the 2006 Commerce and Culture Seminar, presented by Paul Cantor.]Now that Marxists have lost the economic arguments, culture is now the last battleground between Marxism and free markets.Marxists say mass production of anything ruins it. But this is elitist thinking. In Marxist thinking, there is a bias against commercial culture.But, art and culture depends on a division of labor. Without attaining a certain sophisticated level of economic development, cannot have what we now think of as culture.Up until 1800, the world was too poor to care about art. The triumph of capitalism created a mass audience for art and books. Art is an example of spontaneous order. Art is like the market. Art and culture are messy and experimental. Academics would like art to be predictable, but it cannot be. Art improves from being part of a market.Lecture 1 of 10 from Paul Cantor's Commerce and Culture.

Television is not better because you don’t want it to be. The relation of government and television and movies are certainly not free markets, just relatively free markets. TV has always been in a regulated environment. TV is licensed by the federal government.Movies were incredibly freer, allowing them to develop quickly in their first thirty years. Novels surged beyond poetry because no one was noticing. New media will be inventive, experimental and competitive.The history of TV is the history of deregulation because it began so regulated. TV was less creative. It is a good case for free market supported art rather than government supported art. Reality TV comes mainly from Europe. The Prisoner and The Avenger – both great TV -came out of private TV.Networks want the largest audiences and, thus, cater to the lowest common denominator. Three stations were not enough. Fox was the network that was not a network. Fox was not considered a network because of too few hours. This freed Fox from limitations by the SEC. Murdoch was a risk-taking entrepreneur. Cable and satellite changed the system. TV is powerful proof of the commercial culture.Lecture 9 of 10 from Paul Cantor's Commerce and Culture.

Dickens’ work reflects popular culture as a feedback mechanism. He saluted middle class virtues. He praised capitalism. He had high regard for free enterprise. Dickens was the greatest novelist in English. Dickens died a very wealthy man.We are now in the world of commodification. Mass production of a unified product was demanded. Commercialization kept artists rooted in living audiences.Serialization meant that a typical novel was three books of twenty parts each over a year or a year and a half, because the novel in single book form was too expensive. British publishing was the greatest opportunity open to women in the world by that time. There was ease of entry. The market tried everything.Lecture 5 of 10 from Paul Cantor's Commerce and Culture.