By Bryan Caplan, now on sale. From Bryan’s Substack:
My latest book of essays, You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition, flips this narrative. All of these demands for “reshaping culture” are thinly-veiled calls for coercing humans. As the title essay explains:
[C]ulture is… other people! Culture is who other people want to date and marry. Culture is how other people raise their kids. Culture is the movies other people want to see. Culture is the hobbies other people value. Culture is the sports other people play. Culture is the food other people cook and eat. Culture is the religion other people choose to practice. To have a “right to your culture” is to have a right to rule all of these choices — and more.
What’s the alternative? Instead of treating capitalism as the root of cultural decay, the world should embrace capitalist cultural competition. Actions speak louder than words; instead of using government to “shape” culture, let’s see what practices, beliefs, styles, and flavors pass the market test. Which in practice, as I explain elsewhere in the book, largely means the global triumph of Western culture, infused with an array of glorious culinary, musical, and literary imports. Nativists who bemoan immigrants’ failure to assimilate are truly blind; the truth is that even non-immigrants are pre-assimilating at a staggering pace.
Recommended. Bryan also offers some essays on what he finds valuable in GMU Econ sub-culture.
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