Kwame Appiah’s “The Case for Contamination,” along with being one of the most interesting things I have read thus far in Economics 108, offers a unique look into each perspective in the argument for, against, and ambivalent to globalization of culture. The most interesting thing about the article to me was how easily Appiah deduced the argument against the cultural preservationists. Even better, he did so by using simple economic ideas we had learned in class over the previous few weeks. Some of these ideas included supply and demand (in terms of the expansion of the Western good market), the tradeoffs we face in buying local or imported goods, and the opportunity costs of embracing ancient culture when it is cheaper or more advantageous to embrace Western culture, jobs, and goods.
The first discussion question I would ask concerning the reading concerns the entire idea of universalism: if we have one universalist global society, what would happen to the supply and diversity of goods in a market, and would it help or hurt the world economy more to make a transition that favors a universalist society?
On a second note, I would also ask what the problem is with “contamination” stated toward the end of the article, when it is earlier stated by the author that it is ok for people to adapt and change cultures if they so desire? It simply seemed a bit inconsistent to the writing of the article.
A final question I would like to ask concerns the ideas of contamination in terms of nature. With the idea of contamination being proposed as good in terms of economics and culture, should the same argument be used in the case against preserving the environment? Along the same lines, would our “contamination” have a greater overall utility than conserving the environment?
The world is getting smaller due to globalization, but also growing bigger. Through the scope of Appiah’s article we can see that many multi-cultural cities are growing more diverse – a great example being Kumasi – and how at the same time they are becoming more universalist, such as in many Islamic Middle-Eastern cities. After the last couple of weeks of classes, where we have used examples from several countries on how basic economic principles work, it was interesting to read how the economics that apply to America also applies in Ghana and has affected the world for centuries. The article, more or less, gave an example of the economic systems we use today and applied it to the global market and how this acts as proof that contamination can actually be good for society.
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