Instead of going to the movies, watch this!

I have just listened to a debate on globalization and the preservation of cultural diversity between Tyler Cowen of George Mason Univ and of MarginalRevolution.com and Benjamin Barber of Univ of Maryland. Basically, Cowen argues the liberal market paradigm while Barber critques this approach in favor of a democratic state solutions. (It is 2hrs long, but highly suggested if you are interested cultural diversity).

I'm guessing that most of you will not watch the debate, so I'm quite free interpret with little consequence. One of the big arguments is over whether culture can be considered a consumable good/service. Cowen argues that it is and thus that globalization is an important tool in the dissemination of diverse cultural products to consumers around the world. Barber argues that globalization is causing a "McWorld," in which perhaps we are sacrificing culture for diversity of choice, and hence ending up with just plain diversity rather than cultural diversity.

There was a lot of good point brought up so I'll leave the specifics to later posts and not bog you down here!