Global homogenization

[J.]

On Wed, 11 Dec 1996 grip at netcom.com wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, Paul DiFilippo wrote:
> > 
> > To play devil's advocate re:  spread of US culture:  William
> > Safire (yuk! sorry right off the bat) has been writing this week
> > about the curious fact that "no two countries which both have
> > McDonald's franchises have ever fought a war". 
> 
> I assume he means that AFTER they secured the franchises, they didn't go 
> to war. Having eaten (please forgive this, but my 11 year old son hadn't 

Yeah.  The basic idea is that once most countries attain a certain level
of economic stability and prosperity (ie. enough to get a Mickie D's of
their very own, woop), they are less predisposed to go to war, have become
enough a part of the global economy and culture to not necessarily benefit
from going to war, etc.  Pretty interesting to consider, actually..  Kind
of brings all of the talk of cultural empirialism to a more concrete
level.  Maybe Coca-Cola and the Big Mac really *can* conquer the world..

(The article I saw on this, BTW, also mentioned countries getting Windows
95 in their own language in the same light, and was by Thomas Friedman,
not Safire.)

J.

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"The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man." --C. G. Jung