The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

The Culture of LibertyBy Mario Vargas LlosaIn this essay, the novelist and Nobel Laureate in Literature MarioVargas Llosa dispels fears of global capitalism contaminating oreroding cultures and argues that notions of “collective identity”are dehumanizing and that identity springs from the “capacity ofhuman beings to resist these influences and counter them with freeacts of their own invention.”Mario Vargas Llosa is a world-renowned novelist and publicintellectual. In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature“for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant imagesof the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” He is the authorof such works of fiction as The Feast of the Goat, The War of theEnd of the World, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Bad Girl,The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, and many others.This essay is reprinted by permission of the author from theJanuary 1, 2001, issue of Foreign Policy.The most effective attacks against globalization are usually notthose related to economics. Instead, they are social, ethical, and,above all, cultural. These arguments surfaced amid the tumultof Seattle in 1999 and have resonated more recently in Davos,Bangkok, and Prague. They say this:The disappearance of national borders and the establishmentof a world interconnected by markets will deal a deathblow toregional and national cultures and to the traditions, customs,myths, and mores that determine each country or region’scultural identity. Since most of the world is incapable ofresisting the invasion of cultural products from developedcountries—or, more to the point, from the superpower, theUnited States—that inevitably trails the great transnationalcorporations, North American culture will ultimately imposeitself, standardizing the world and annihilating its rich flora114