MARVIN HARRIS AND CULTURAL MATERIALISM

Robert N. St. Clair

INTRODUCTION

Currently, the field of anthropology is concerned with a theory of human diversity. Anthropologists refer to this as "the study of man." There are several aspects to this tradition of studying what man is like. One part, for example, deals with the remaining artifacts of the past is known as archeology. Another area concerns the investigation of human remains and this is known as physical anthropology. Linguistics is the study of language structure and it was once a major part of anthropological research. Now it is an independent field of investigation. Even sociology was once merely a course in anthropology before it attained a separate status as a separate discipline. The most interesting area within the tradition of anthropology, however, is the study of culture.

There was a time when anthropologists studied exotic cultures. These were studies that told about how people of distant nations experienced life and carried out their own social dramas. These cultures were contrasted from those of the industrial nations. It was the task of the sociologist to study the culture of the industrial nations. The anthropologists, on the other hand, studied the cultures of the non-industrial nations. The problem with this scenario is that much have changed since the beginning of anthropological and sociological research began centuries ago. Many non-industrial nations have become industrialized. Many Third and Second World nations have attained the status of becoming First World nations. These changes have led to great confusion between the disciplines of anthropology and sociology. Many sociologists found themselves studying cultures that used to be considered exotic. Similarly, many anthropologists found themselves studying exotic cultures which were rapidly become part of the industrialized world. These scholars soon became confused as to who should study what culture. These confusion was eventually reflected among university administrators who used their own judgment on the matter and began to combine departments of anthropology with those of sociology. They became known as The Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The faculty complained, but they knew that they had more in common among themselves than others realized. They only differed on one issue and that was the relationship of "society" to "culture." Sociologist argued that culture was just another kind of society. Anthropologists disagreed. The model presented in this book agrees with the claims made by sociologists. It goes one step further by arguing that when a subculture is made official within a nation state, it becomes known as the culture for that group.

CULTURAL MATERIALISM AS THE NEW WORLD CULTURE

Marvin Harris (1980) has proposed a new model of anthropology. He thinks that all forms of culture can be explain in terms of economics. He argued that his new theory of cultural materialism would be able to explain all cultural differences as patterns of struggles for economic existence. Every society must cope with its own problems of production and reproduction of material goods, and the various kinds of problems or threats of disorder arising from these domestic economic processes. He agreed with Karl Marx that the mode of production in the material life of a nation determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. Most scholars would agree with this anthropologist, however, what they find startling about his theories is that he uses it to explain everything about cultures. When other anthropologists argue that the Hindus venerate cows because of religious beliefs, Harris (1974) boldly states that religion has nothing to do with it. He notes many inconsistencies such as Moslems, for example, may argue on religious grounds that they should not eat pork, but they do eat beef. This makes them cow killers. What about the Hindus? Harris notes that they do eat meat. The issue is about the killing of female cows. They are not the cow lovers that they claim to be. There may be many cows in India, but there is a shortage of oxen. The oxen and the male water buffalo are the principal sources of traction used by farmers in the ploughing of their fields. There is a real threat in India due to a shortage of these draft animals. Oxen, Harris notes (1974:10) are made by cows. Farmers do not kill cows in India because they would be destroying the factory that makes oxen possible. It is all a matter of economics. He produces figures showing that even though more cows are born than oxen every year, there are statistically fewer cows in India. Something must be happening to these cows to cause them to die! He concludes that these cows are slaughtered for food and that any religious claims about "sacred cows" has no basis of reality. Note that "reality" has been defined by Harris as "economic reality." He is using the business model as a theory of anthropology.
Harris claims that everything that other anthropologists may define as cultural really has an economic motive or basis. Wars, for example, do not occur because of cultural differences. Wars are economically motivated. Harris (1971:41-69; 1977: Chapter Four). People mobilize themselves for violence and go to war as solutions to economic problems. Growing nations have problems of population pressure and need more land in which to settle down and they take it away from their neighbors. Expanding nations need more raw materials and they invade their neighbors in order to guarantee a steady flow of goods into their own country. He even argues that warfare is an effective means of population control in those countries which have a vary large imbalance of males to females. His claims have credence when one considers the historical explanations for most recent wars. Harris even explains how some aboriginal cultures adapt warlike lifestyles because it is good for the economy. It appears that his model could also explain the rationale for many modern countries which live on wartime economies. The United States is one of them. This is a country which has a huge wartime budget even though it is not currently at war with anyone. The reason for this large expenditure of wartime funds in the past was supposed to be due to the "cold war." This was a concerted among many nations in the Western world which worked together in preparation for a potential war against Russia. What is interesting is the cold war is over and many corporations continue to produced arms and munitions. The top ten defense contractors back in 1989 were McDonnell Douglas (Harrier Vertical takeoff planes, F-15 Eagle supersonic fighter plane, F/A Hornet attack planes, missiles, nuclear weapons), General Dynamics (nuclear powered submarines, tanks, F-16 fighter planes, Tomahawk missiles, Phalanx gun systems, Sparrow missiles, SM-1 missiles), General Electric / Hughes (military radar systems, missiles, tanks, microwave transmitters, nuclear weapons), Raytheon (Patriot missiles, military radar systems), General Motors (defense electronics, nuclear weapons), Lockheed (Star Wars, satellites), United Technologies (helicopters, aerospace gear, space guidance systems), Martin Marietta, Boeing (B-52 bombers, Chinook helicopters), and Grumman (2.3 billion dollars in unknown defense contracts). Under President Reagan, the Pentagon budget for McDonnell Douglas, the leading defense contractor in the United States, doubled. There is a real economic problem for companies such as these. During wartime, they are seen as heroes. They provide much needed equipment, expertise, and organizational skills. The problem is that they expand during such times and become dependent on money from defense contracts. What happens to such companies when the war is over? Usually such companies suffer sever cutbacks and reorganization towards a peace time economy. But, research shows that this is not what happened. They still have large defense contracts. How is that possible? The only conclusion that can be drawn is that America is still operating on a war time economy. Perhaps, Marvin Harris was correct about this aspect of the economic motivation behind war.

Why is this research model of cultural materialism brought into the discussion of American culture? The answer is twofold. The first reason is that Marvin Harris is an American anthropologist who proposes a new theory of culture, but he is unaware that his own theory is culture bound. His model comes directly from the business model which claims that everything in life is economic. He explains cannibalism in some cultures as a natural means of obtaining protein. He views religious movements as attempts to replace old systems of power with n ewer ones that are more economically viable. He views the taboo on eating pork in some cultures as an economic choice. The taboo on eating beef in Hindu cultures is argued from an economic perspective. The women's movement in the United States is seen as an economic event. All war religious or otherwise are seen as being economically motivated. The witch hunts in the United States during the colonial period are explained by him as economic ventures. Even violence and crime is reinterpreted by him and are viewed by him as economic events. If Harris is not correct in his current theory, he eventually will be correct because it appears that all of the old traditional cultures of the world are being replaced by the dictates of the corporate culture with its emphasis on a consumer society.

The second reason why Harris is important for the study of advertising and the social construction of a consumer culture in area is because he has actually analyzed American culture using his economic model (Harris, 1981). Anthropologists have noted that some cultures are more violent than others. The United States is of ten cited as one of those more violent cultures in the industrial world. Why is this so? Many argue that it is due to the nature of the American culture. It has five times more homicides than Japan. It experiences ten times more cases of rape than Japan. There are seventeen times more robberies in the United States than in Japan. Harris disagrees with them. He cites the American economy as the reason for such violence. Before considering his interpretation of these events, it is interesting to note several modern theories which attempt to explain the rise of violence in the United States. One of these theories, it is argued that criminal violence is inevitable in the United States because of its capitalist mode of production. If this were true, Japan and Great Britain would have high crime rates. They do not. Another theory claims that violence is simply the result of urbanization. This theory also fails. Japan and Great Britain are highly urbanized and they do not come close to the United States in crime statistics. Tokyo is the world's largest city. However, New York City has twelve times as many murders than Tokyo and fourteen times as many rapes. Some students of American history note how violence was part of the settling of the American frontier prior to the turn of the century. Their argue that this violence mentality still exists and accounts for the high crime rate in modern America. The problem with this theory is that it cannot explain why the crime rate has risen in the United States since the end of the Second World war. Others propose theories based on race. They appeal to the fact that Blacks constitute only eleven percent of the population, but Backs account for about forty-three percent of all violent crimes committed in the United States. Most homicides and robberies are committed by Blacks. They account for seventy two percent of criminal homicides, seventy four percent of aggravated assaults, and eighty-five percent of armed robberies. Harris (1981: 124-125) disagrees with those who correlate these statistics with racial identity. He does not see race as a factor in the crimes committed in America. He attributes these high statistics by Blacks in America to poverty. Half of these Blacks live in major American cities and are raised in the most dilapidated and dirtiest inner cores of these cities. They are victims of high unemployment. They have no incomes. They have chosen violent crime as a solution to their chronic despair. Crime has become their career. What Harris cannot explain by his economic theory is the fact that the Black middle class is now the largest that it has ever been in the history of the United States. At present there are many more Blacks who are well educated, working in decent jobs, and supporting a family in the suburbs than ever before. His statistics do not account for the fact that Whites also commit many crimes. Most con artists (confidence men) are White. Many people who pose as contractors and take money from the unsuspecting elderly for low quality home repairs White. White collar crime occurs but it often goes unreported. The model proposed by Harris cannot explain why the United States is such a violent country.

It is interesting to note that Harris has embraced the capitalistic model in support of his theory of cultural materialism. It is a model which places money or financial concerns at the center of all human activities. Everything human is interpreted through this business model. There are other models of culture. The interpretation model of culture is held by Clifford Geertz (1973; 1983). It views culture as a symbolic activity which must be interpreted in terms of local knowledge and customs. Geertz has spent most of his adult life studying other cultures. He lived with the natives of Bali and speak their language. He spend many years in the Near East and also speaks Arabic. When he writes his books about a culture, they represent his interpretation of the events as seen through the eyes of those natives around him. What he has described is the emic culture of these peoples . Another noted model of cultural analysis comes from the writings of Lévi-Strauss (1949; 1955: 1972 a, b; 1964). His model is structural. What this means is that he views all cultures as expression of underlying binary categories. These categories are unconscious and they pervade all forms of human expression, including culture. There is one major problem with this model. Speakers of Western European languages realize that when they categorize things, they tend to present them as opposites: black versus white, good versus bad, etc. What they do not realize is that not all cultures share this view of categorization. In many cultures in the Far East, for example, things are seen as belonging to a continuum. Good and bad are not opposites, but the ends of a continuum. Some things are more good than others. Some are worse. In these cultures, the world does not exist as polarities. What this means is simply that the structural model proposed by Lévi-Strauss is culture bound. Therefore, it has limited use as an analytical tool. A very recent model of cultural analysis comes from a biologist. Edmund Wilson (1975) has developed a model of sociobiology. It is based on the assumption that all of human behavior can be explained in biological terms. Recent research in cellular biology and gene splicing give credence to this model, but genetic traits cannot explain all form of human expression which differentiate one set of humans from another. Even though sociobiology is a promising new field which explains such human traits as territoriality and hierarchical dominance, it cannot explain most cultural phenomena. What Wilson's model offers is a balance against those anthropologists and sociologists who argued that culture was a replacement for the loss of instinctual behavior in humans. One is led again to the either/or dichotomy characteristic of Western thinking. Either cultures are seen as having no biological bases or they are seen as containing only biological explanations for human behavior.

THE CONSUMER CULTURE AS THE NEW WORLD CULTURE

What the authors of this book claim is that the creation of the consumer culture which began in the United States in the second decade of this century has not only become the mainstream culture for the United States, but it is rapidly becoming a new world culture. As developing nations adopt the model of monopoly capitalism, they also adopt its beliefs that the purpose of life is economic. They adopt the model of cultural materialism proposed by the anthropologist, Marvin Harris, who attempts to explain all human behavior in economic terms. With the advent of the new world culture, many of the older cultural patterns have either undergone erosion or replaced by the demands of a consumer culture. Research into this new culture is seen as a positive contribution by economists and members of the business community. Recently, Charles Hampden-Turner and Alfons Trompenaars 1992) have developed a model in which they attempt to explain the seven cultures of capitalism. This model does include both Japan and the United States. All of the other countries mentioned in this analysis are European. The economic miracles of the Asian Rim cultures are not mentioned in this book outside of the Japanese experience. In this model, the authors already assume that there is a common world culture and they dedicate their research to subcultural differences. They note how managerial styles differ from one nation to another and how the role of labor unions differs across nations. Their work is very informative, but it needs to be expanded so as to include the underlying rationales for these so-called cultural differences.

THE NINE SUBCULTURES OF NORTH AMERICA

Anyone who has been to North America knows that a great cultural diversity exits among the nations of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. These differences have been studied by Joel Garreau (1981) who is the editor of the Washington Post, an important national American newspaper with a strong research staff. For two years, Garraeau traveled North America and collected hundreds of important sources of social and economic information from which he created his interesting theory of the Nine Nations of North America. These groups, he noted, are nations within nations. They are all culturally different from one another. They may share many beliefs and attitudes, and in some ways they may even differ radically in their social, political, or economic perspective on life. For this reason Garreau considers them to be separate nations.

America is made up of nations within nations. Cultures within cultures. Each is different from the other.

What Garreau has accomplished with his Nine Nations Theory is what any cultural geographer would have arrived at after an in-depth analysis of the cultures in North America. The rationale for this study, however, was not anthropological. Garreau wanted to create a model for newsmen so that they could adequately analyze and judge media trends within North America. Newsmen have always felt that there were many Americas and wanted to be able to refer to these various groups in descriptive terms. In this sense, Garreau was following a tradition which is common to the business of marketing. Advertisers have also created cultural maps of North America. Their maps, however are commercial. Those of Garreau were not. Garreau was merely pursuing this line of thought. His research depicts certain common trend among the citizens of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. He calls these subcultures, the Nine Americas. Garreau feels that his research represents a rhetorical pattern which is common to North America. He notes that when one encounters a stranger, such persons will tend to ask the same three questions of each other: What is your name? Where are you from? Where do you work?

THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FAMILY NAME

The name of a person is important is American culture because it indicates one's social or ethnic heritage. The name of John Henry IV, for example, tells one that the family has aristocratic designs or ambitions. Towanda Jones signifies that the woman was named by parents who take pride in their African heritage. Jorge Yamamoto is a name that tells one that although he is of Japanese kinship, his surname indicates that he has adapted to the Mexican culture and is also fluent in that language. Names tend to follow trends. The most popular names in America at present is "Jason" for males and "Jennifer" for females. Before the turn of the century, many people had biblical names such as Jeremiah, Jones (derived from the genitive of John), Joseph, Ezekiel, Mark, Matthew, Mary, or the names of Saints such as Theresa, Thomas, or Paul. These names were especially popular before the turn of the century (Johnson, 1990: 521-522)

Aaron (first high priest of the Jews), Abigail (wife of Nabal), Abraham (patriarch or forefather of the Jews), Asher (son of Jacob), Boaz (husband of Ruth), Daniel (the prophet saved from the lions by God), Hannah (wife of Elkanah), I saac (Hebrew patriarch, son of Abraham), Ishmael (son of Abraham and Hagar), Jacob (Hebrew patriarch, founder of Israel), Mordecai (uncle of Esther), Rebecca (wife of Isaac), Seth (son of Adam)

Some family names reflect a certain time in the social history of a nation. There was a time in Europe when a person was named by what his family did for a living or by his personal traits.

Baker - his family worked with the oven Green - his family worked and lived near the village green Cooper - the family name given to barrel makers Tanner - family that worked with the tanning of animal hides Shoemaker - the family that made shoes Fowler - the family that takes care of the chickens Miller - family that ground the corn and other grains Fowler - the family that takes care of the fowls Carpenter - family that worked with wood Becker - the family that works with hoes and adzes Smith - the family name of the blacksmith Hall - the family that was employed in a manor or hall within an Estate

Later, people were named after their families. In this time, the man was legally considered to be the head of the house According to this Latin tradition, the family was named after him (Latin: pater familias). Hence in England, one finds Richardson which means son of Richard. Robinson or Robertson means son of Robert. And so other names with the suffix "-son" maintain this etymology. Simpson, Davidson, etc. The Irish use the word "Mac" to mean "son of" so MacArthur means son of Arthur. MacDonald, MacMahon, and numerous other names follow this pattern (Lehman and Lehman, 1957: 7-8). Some have the prefix which means "descendant of." O'Neil means "grandson or descendant of Neil." O'Malley, O'Brien and other names follow this pattern. But the Irish also have characteristic names which date back from old Celtic traditions or traits (Griffin, 1990: 107; Grenham, 1993: 78-183:

Armstrong from family of Adam Armstrong, 1235 A.D., Bell (beautiful or handsome), Bradley from O Brolchain (breast), Brennan form O Braonain (sorrow), Byrne from O Broin (the raven), Burke from Norman French surname de Burgh, Burns from an Anglicization of O'Byrne, Cahil from O Cathail (strong in battle), Campbell from Cathmhaol (battle-champion), Casey form Cathasach (vigilant in war), Cassidy from O Caiside (curly-headed), Clark from Latin Clericus (clergyman), Connolly from O Conghalaigh (as fierce as a wolf), Daly from O Dalaigh (one who is present at assemblies), Dillon from O Duilleain (the blind one of Leon), Donohue from O Donnchadha (brown-haired), Dunne from O Duinn (swarthy or brown-haired), Finnegan from O Fionnagain (fair-haired), Fitzgerald from Norman French (son of Gerald), Fitzpatrick from an Anglicization of Mac Giolla Phadraig (son of the servant of Patrick), Ford from English (one who lived near a Ford), Flynn from O Floinn (reddish or ruddy), Gorman from Mac Gormain (spear protection), Kelly from O Ceallaigh (bright-haired or troublesome), Lennon from O Leannain (lover), Kennedy from O Cinneide (round-headed or ugly headed), Lyon from Normal French Leon (lion), Lynch from the Norman French surname de Lench, McCarthy from Mac Carthaigh (loving), Macnamara from Mac Conmara (son of the hound of the sea), Moriarty from O Muicheartaigh (one skilled in the ways of the sea), Murphy comes from O Murchadha (the sea warrior), O'Brien from O Briain (lofty or eminent), O'Connor from O Conchobhair (lover of hounds), O'Neill (nine hostages), Quinn from O Cuinn (chief or leader), Regan from O Riagain (impulsive or angry), Reilly from O Ragailligh, Ryan from O Mavilriain , Sullivan from O Suileabhain (eye deity), Walsh, a person of Welsh origin.

Many Scottish names follow the traditions of Ireland. The following Scots-Gaelic names reflect this pattern of naming people after old legendary figures or after the personal traits of a family or clan (Grant: 1992: Sections II, VIII, XVII, XVIII, XXVI, XXXV)

Cameron from Chameron (man with a crooked nose), Chisholm from Chisallich (an ancient Celtic tribe), Gordon (descendants of the famous knight who slew monstrous animals), Graham (descendants of the famous warrior who breached to Roman wall in 420 A.D., MacDonald (old clan founded by Gaelic Somhairle and the Norsemen Somerled), MacGregor (the clan of those who lived next to the lowlands)

What is important about a person's name is that it provides one with information about that individual. Is the name ethnic? Does it belong to one generation or another? Is it an old Anglo-Saxon family name or is it the name of an immigrant family. Many immigrants have been known to anglicize their names. For example, the Portuguese "Perreira" was anglicized to "Perry." During the First and Second World Wars many Americans with German names had them legally changed so as to avoid criticism or persecution. Johann became John, and Adolph was changed to Al. Regional variants can also be found in how a name is spelled or pronounced, for example, St. Clair is British, Sinclair is Scottish, and Sainte Claire is French. In Japan, foreign names are written in Katakana and Japanese names are written in Kanji. Some forms of Kanji may reflect older forms of the language and others may be written in the revised Kanji forms. America is a nation of immigrants and the name of one's family reflects the country from which one's ancestors came from. Rheinhold is German, Bhaktin is Russian, Kanemura is Japanese, Hsu is Chinese, Carducci is Italian, Kim is Korean, and McGregor is Scottish.. Sometimes, names can be confusing. In the traditional South, the name of Lee is given high value because of the Civil War General by that name. In one southern college a student named Lee ran for public office and was overwhelmingly elected by his fellow students. After the election they found out that Mr. Lee was a Chinese student. If he had spelled his name Li instead of Lee, he would have lost the election. What this means is that the question "What is your name" is an important request for information.

THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REGION

When someone asks about what part of the country an individual was raised in, he is asking for an information on that person's subculture. Someone who was born in East Los Angeles (State of California) belongs to an area that Garreau refers to a Mexamerica. Whereas someone who was born in Pittsburgh (State of Pennsylvania) knows that his city is the home of United States Steel and Pittsburgh Plate Glass. Garreau refers to this area as the Foundry. What he is accomplishing by means of these labels for the Nine Americas is important. Each regional area has its own capital. Each looks different from the others. Each one definitely feels different. And, each sounds different. Individuals may share a national image such as being a Mexican, Canadian, or an American (i.e., a citizen of the United States). However, these people may not share a common subculture. Someone born in the Foundry has a different value structure than one who comes from Mexamerica. The final question in the triad is one of social status. What one does for a living is important information as to what level of society one belongs to. A medical doctor lives in a different social world from that of a laborer. They may both have the same family name, both raised in the same regional culture, but they do not belong to the same social class. If North Americans were to follow the Japanese in the use of business cards (meishi), it would contain a persons name, where he name from, and what kind of work he does. So the question remains? What are the nine cultures of North America? These different regional cultures are discussed as follows.

New England is one of the regional cultures which Garreau analyzes. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and most of Connecticut belong to the area of New England. People from these parts like to refer to themselves as being more civilized than other parts of the country. They consider themselves to be academic elitists. They are known for their strong independent character and for their Yankee virtues as ingenuity and shrewd trading. The images of New England are those of efficient cast-iron wood stoves, maple syrup, beautiful multicolored falling leaves Autumn, and old-fashioned values. The dominant industries in New England are low wage industries such as textiles, apparel, and leather. New England is known for its abundance of water and its woodlands.

New England lacks the oil of MexAmerica, the thundering cascades of hydro power found in Quebec and Ecotopia, and the uranium and synthetic fuel stocks of the Empty Quarter. Except for its proximity to the fishing riches of the Georges Bank, New England has sparse rouse assets -- apart from the remnants of an industrialism that derived from the historical accident of first settlement.

In general social and economic terms, the scenery and the surroundings have becomes New England's primary asset. New England is rapidly transforming itself into North America's first truly twenty-first-century, postindustrial society, and, as such, it is again a land of pioneers (Garreau, 1981: 19). The future of this area is in the realm of high technology. Wang Computers, for example, is located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Dr. A. E. Wang received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1946 in applied physics and has been in business in the area for over three decades. Raytheon is also another big employer in the area. Byte Magazine, a computer journal, can be found in Peterborough. New England Digital makes Synclavier synthesizers is also a New England company. Natives of the area, however, receive these new industries with mixed blessings. They are particularly opposed to nuclear energy. It is not surprising, Garreau argues, that Seabrook Station was the place of the American antinuclear movement. New England, it should be noted, includes such Canadian areas as Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.

THE FOUNDRY

The Foundry is a different kind of America. It is the home of the steel mill. It is where the Bessemer process was created. This process made the production of steel possible and allowed it to compete with iron. Steel changed the face of the continent (Garreau, 1981: 59). It enabled the architects of the Chicago School to transform New York into a city of skyscrapers. It provided the steel rails which linked the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads. It provided the barbed wire which transformed open rangeland into farmland and promoted the creation of towns. The foundry could not have happened elsewhere in North America. It was situated in the middle of a triangle of the three basic resources of steel: high quality iron ore (Northern Michigan and the Mesabi Range of Minnesota), bituminous coal (the valleys of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky), and limestone (New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario).

Its capital must be Detroit, the birth place of the assembly line, but its spiritual center is bankrupt Cleveland. Its hope may be Baltimore, but its shame is Cicero, the northern town whose hatred broke the heart of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Garreau, 1981; 58)

The Foundry is the most populous of the Nine Nations. One third of America can be found here. It is an area that has attracted a virtual melting pot of ethnic groups: Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Scots, Welsh, and Irish. Later it attracted the Blacks who were fleeing from the region known as Dixie. The Foundry was aptly represented by the television situation comedy, Archie Bunker. Some argue that the glory days of the foundry are over. It is failing. Its cities are old. The famous television program on how to repair old homes (This Old House) was targeted for this area. This program is hosted by Ted Villa who teaches his viewers how to rebuilt or upgrade old homes. Others consider the Foundry to be the home of General Motors. Since the manufacture of automobiles have been a major source of government income, many still hold out that General Motors will again save the nation. They are quick to mention that Ford Motors is currently doing well with its Ranger Trucks and its Taurus and Sable automobiles. The number one corporation sales in Canada was by General Motors of Canada, Ltd. This is located in Oshawa which is about an hour east of Toronto. It is owned completely by General Motors in Detroit and as much as 80% of its sales are destined for the United States. What they have forgotten is the fact that many of the nations of the First World are moving into a postindustrial society. America is desperately trying to maintain the power and the glory of the past which was based on an industrial society.

The problem with the Foundry is that it is failing. Its cities are old and creaking, as is much of its industry. It is still struggling with its historic role as the integrator of wildly different personalities and cultures and ethnic groups, and there is no assurance that the sociological battles that it has been assigned will end in victory (Garreau, 1981: 65).

The area covered by the Foundry is quite large. On the North it includes such Canadian towns as Ottawa, Toronto, Windsor and land areas north of Lake Erie and Lake Huron. On the West it is flanked in the United States by Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. Washington D.C. and Baltimore are also a part of the Foundry. Obviously, someone who grows up in the Foundry has very different social, economic, and ethnic experiences from one who comes from New England.

DIXIE

Dixie is another regional culture that has been outlined by Garreau. This area is steeped in tradition. The first flag of the Union came from Dixie. It is where the battle of the North and the South is still being replayed in the hearts and the minds of its citizenry. They like to refer to themselves as Southeners. They flaunt the image of the coquetious Southern Belle. And they take pride in their mint juleps and Southern style cooking. Dixie is the home of tobacco. It is where one finds tobacco farms and Liggett and Myers, the tobacco company. Liggett makes the top-selling chewing tobacco: Red Man. Their Chesterfield brand was once the third largest seller in the United States. Their L&M filter brands were a success. They have done poorly recently. They are now in the last place in the cigarette business. They continue to make money on chewing tobacco, but have lost sales in their smoking tobacco. Their most popular tobacco brands include Chesterfield, Eve, Lark, L&M, and Oasis. They have diversified their business and now sell Scotch whiskey, J&B. They are now the leaders in canned dog food, Alpo. Philip Morris is another cigarette manufacturer located in the South. Its popular brands include Merit, Parliament, Benson & Hedges, Virginia Slims, Saratoga, Marlboro, and Philip Morris. This company produces more than 170 different brands of cigarettes and distributes them to over 170 countries around the world. Philip Morris is not limited to selling cigarettes. It has also diversified into real estate. It developed Mission Viejo in Orange county which is located just south of Los Angeles. But the company also has diversification in polymer chemicals. They own Armstrong Products which serves the textile industry. Another arm of economic expansion by this company includes beer breweries. Philip Morris produces Miller and Lowenbrau. In the area of soft drinks, they produce 7-Up. The third major cigarette maker in the South is RJ Reynolds which is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Their more popular brands include Winston, Salem, Camel, Vantage, More, Now, and Oral. They have also diversified their corporations and own Del Monte which is the biggest vegetable and fruit packer in the United States. They own Chung King, the maker of soy sauces and oriental meals. They even own an oil company, Aminoil. It would be wrong to see the South as nothing more than tobacco farms.
Dixie is also a quilt. It contains Louisiana Cajuns, Ozark hillbillies, and the Appalachians of Tennessee, Kentucky, and the West Virginia. The South, however, is changing. It is now referred to as the Sunbelt. It is where many government agencies such as NASA can be found. Space travel centers can be found at Cape Canaveral (Florida), Houston (Texas) and Montgomery (Alabama). Atlanta is now the hub for Delta Airlines and a National Conference Center. The boundaries of Dixie are quite large. On the West is Dallas and Houston, on the North is St. Louis, Louisville, and Richmond and the Southern rim includes New Orleans, and all of Florida except Miami.

THE ISLANDS

The Islands is the name given to the areas of Miami, all of the Caribbean, Northern portions of Venezuela. This seems to be a strange composite of people to include under the same regional culture. Why did Garreau combine them into a common group? One could imagine this area to be a carefree world as represented by the singer Jimmy Buffett, beachcomber who has captured the life of the Caribbean in his songs about being barefoot on the beach, surfing on the waves, traveling from island to island on a boat, and joie de vivre which he found in the local bars. He is known as the poet laureate of the Islands. He sings of a carefree life near the beach. There is only one season in the tropics. It is comfortable all year round. He is surrounded by many beautiful local women, a fulfillment of his male fantasies. His calls his place in the sun, Marguerita ville. It is named after a strong alcoholic drink made from the tequila plant. This is how Jimmy Buffett views his life as a beachcomber.

Garreau finds a different kind of culture among these Caribbean islands. His view of this ideal location is not very complementary. The number one industry of South Florida, he notes, is drug-smuggling. It is ahead of tourism. Tourist boats are now being used to bring in bales of Marijuana, or cocaine. He alludes Miami as the home of the Mafia. It is also the home of Focus Scientific and Electronics, an industry that makes nightscopes , antibugging devices, and phone scramblers for the CIA.

. the Mafia considered South Florida a vacation spa, meeting place, retirement goal, and a place to invest their ill-gotten gains in legitimate business (Garreau, 1981:172).

Obviously, this is not what South Florida wants to be known for. They see themselves as an international city in which Spanish is the language of commerce. Miami is the place of business for anyone who wants to do business in Spanish with representatives from Central and South America. Miami is also a favorite vacation spot for tourist from the Northeast. Hence, they see themselves as the tourist Mecca of New York City. But the tourist from Manhattan and the Bronks have ceased their migrations to the South. They have been replaced by an influx of Cubans. Anyone who wants to deal with South American trade must speak Spanish and must do his business in Miami. But the dark side of the Islands override the image of tourists. The drug traffic is a reality. Miami does a thriving business in the drug trade.

Murders linked to the drug trade are averaging more than one a week in the Miami area. Place crashes associated with attempts to fly under coastal radar defenses, without lights, in order to land marijuana at isolated dirt airstrips, also with lights, have mounted to as high as one a day (Garrreau, 1981: 177).

Puerto Rico, another Island culture, is an American territory which could be readily classified along with Miami in terms of its Spanish heritage and its strong bilingual tradition. Cuba, on the other hand, is considered to be a part of the Islands. It is interesting to note that it was once the playground of the Mafia before the overthrow of Batista by Fidel Castro. It now has a very different culture. It is aligned with Russian communism and is ruled by a dictator and in spite of these differences Garreau still includes Cuba in this regional culture. The Bahamas, another Island culture, provides island homes for many wealthy movie stars just as Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach provides Winter homes for the Super Rich. But, this does not mean that the Bahamas and Puerto Rico alone should be classified with Miami. Other countries such as the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the Greater and Lesser Antilles are also included in the regional culture known as the Islands. If Garreau wants to include all of these areas into one regional culture, then he should consider tourism to be the major focus. All of these regions except for Haiti and Venezuela vigorously serve the tourist trade. It is the image that others have of them. Many tourists from Venezuela, for example, visit the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) and other Caribbean islands as tourists. Finally, it should be noted that Miami is essentially known as a tourist center. Real Estate brokers and travel agents worked the New York and New Jersey area for years and encouraged people to retire in South Florida. As a consequence, the dialects of this area are Northeastern. As a consequence, Miami and its environs are very different from Northern Florida which resembles Dixie. Now that many Cubans have immigrated into Southern Florida, the cultural climate has once again changed. It is this last change that makes it closer to the other islands of the Caribbean as a cultural group.

MEXAMERICA

Mexamerica is an area which covers portions of California (Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada range), all of Arizona, New Mexico, and the Western and Southern portions of Texas (El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and the towns along the Rio Grande). It also includes all of Mexico. This is an interesting conglomeration of locales. East Los Angeles, for example, has the second largest number of Mexicans outside of Mexico City. One can live in East Los Angeles for a whole lifetime and never have to use English. All of the shops have signs in Spanish, the radio stations are in Spanish, and all of the workers in national chain stores located in the area hire only workers that speak Spanish. San Antonio is the home of Spanish International Network (SIN) and produces Spanish language programs all over the United States, Central America, South America, and Europe. All along the Mexican border from Arizona to Texas one hears Spanish being spoken by a group that has the fastest growth rate in the United States. Many companies label the contents of their products in Spanish. Also the San Joaquin Valley which is bounded by San Francisco and Sacramento in the north is where many seasonal workers (braceros) can be found. The language of these people is Spanish. Their music is the Mexican (norteno). Mexican radio stations can be found all throughout the San Joaquin Valley and even into the mid sections of Washington State (the Yakima Valley). There are thirty-seven stations in Texas, Twenty-three in California, six in Arizona, and four in New Mexico. The values and the character of Mexamerica makes it a regional culture.

Mexicana is most evident along the 1,933 mile border that the United States shares with Mexico, but it is also highly visible as well in such diverse nonborder cities as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Pueblo, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. Los Angeles is not only the second-largest metropolitan area in the world, after Mexico City, with 1.5 million American citizens of Mexican heritage, and an estimated half-million more illegal immigrants. In San Antonio, the tenth largest city in the United States, there are already fewer Anglos than there are tejanos, as some Texans of Mexican descent like to call themselves (Garreau, 1981: 211).

Over one hundred million federal dollars are spent each year for bilingual education. Much of it is spent in the Southwest; and it is used to teach Spanish to Anglos and English to Mexicans. The billboards in San Antonio are in Spanish and in Phoenix many of the street signs are in Spanish. Spanish is becoming the language of the airwaves. At one time there were only a few radio stations in the Southwest. Now there are thirty-seven in Texas, twenty-three in California, six in Arizona, and four in New Mexico. Most Mexicans are Catholics and two-thirds of the Catholics in the Southwest are Mexicans. Obviously, Mexamerica differs substantially from most of the other nine nations of America. It should be mentioned that Spanish speakers are among the fastest growing population in the United States and it is estimated that the country will become bilingual within the next few generations.

ECOTOPIA

Ecotopia is the new hope of the West Coast of the United States. The term was coined by Garreau to signify the new ecological utopia. The is the land of nature where giant Red Woods are allowed to grow for another thousand years, and where organic farming is the ideal. Ecotopia begins in Southern Alaska and includes Valdez and Juneau. It crosses British Columbia along Canada's Western coast and enters the United States at Western Washington. The area runs down along the seaward side of Oregon, and Northern California's seacoast and runs through San Francisco end at the scenic area of Point Conception. Anyone who has traveled along this route will recognize Ecotopia. The Great Continental Divide is a range of mountains which separates Ecotopia from the Empty Quarter. The sea coast of Washington State, Oregon, and Northern California is known for its natural beauty. There are pine trees, good fishing grounds, hunting cabins, fishing towns, and lush green foliage. Because of its image of cleanliness, Ecotopians have rejected the introduction of industry into their towns. They did not want factories to pollute the air and contaminate the streams. The only kinds of commercial enterprises that they catered to were those of the electronic industry. As a consequence, the area south of San Francisco became known as "silicon valley" because of its creation of electronic chips. In Bellevue (Washington) just across the lake from Seattle is the home of MicroSoft, the maker of Intel microchips and related computer software programs. But, Seattle is also the home of Boeing Aircraft, the largest exporter of airplanes in the world. This is an industry that hires hundreds of engineers and is not comparable to comparable to auto manufacturing common to the Foundry. There are anomalies in Ecotopia. Seattle may be one of the more scenic cities in Ecotopia, but it also has the highest suicide rate in America. Louisville (Kentucky) in Dixie comes in second place. No one has been able to adequately explain why this is so. What both of these cities have in common, however, is that they are both heavily overcast and covered by clouds most of the year.

There wasn't even much sun. Seattle likes to say that the total annual rainfall in that fair city is less than in New York, but that doesn't explain the town's suicide rate, which is the highest in North America, and is often attributed to the way the water comes down. All over Ecotopia weather loves to hang in difficult-to-dress-for balance of wetness that is moister than mist but drier than drizzle. The standard joke is that in summers in the Pacific Northwest, residents don't tan, they rust (Garreau, 1981: 260).

Ecotopia, it should be noted, is an active participant in the Pacific Rim trade cycle. Seattle is an active seaport along with San Francisco and Long Beach in California. Furthermore, Bremerton (Washington) is an active naval shipyard and the home of various nuclear submarines such as the Trident. This submarine houses four trident missiles which are four-stories-tall. Each missile carries ten warheads. Each of these warheads is designed to produce airbursts. In a blinding flash of light, this warhead can cause hurricane winds, thermal radiation and nuclear fallout. Seattle is also the home of Boeing's cruise missiles. Seattle is a part of the Pacific Rim culture. Its trade with Asia appears to be more important than its trade with the rest of North America. Their business is with Europe and with the countries of the Pacific Rim. California share the same view of Ecotopia.

When China began to open up its economy to the West, Seattle and Vancouver saw dollar signs. Before Mao, they had been the ports from which North America's trade with China had flourished, simply because they're the closest. And, of course, Vancouver had been shipping Canadian Breadbasket wheat to China throughout the seventies.

One of the first things the People's Republic bought when it started looking through the North American industrial candy store was a Boeing jet, which ended up going nonstop from Peking to Paris on its maiden flight. In fact, when I was at the Boeing 747 assembly plant, a plane destined for the PRC sat gleaming in its Vaseline-green protective coating, peafully coexisting next to a place with Taiwanese marketing (Garreau, 1981: 280).

It is interesting to note that China is now producing its own airplanes which are very similar to the first Boeing 707 that they bought. Boeing is not concerned about this new market within China. The Boeing 707 is based on a technology which is at least twenty-five years old. China does not seem to threaten their economic livelihood.

It is important to note that the influence of Asia is also felt in America's Ecotopia. There are twice as many Japanese cars in this area than American cars. The grocery stores openly sell oriental foods and supplies. Many Americans in this area are comfortable shopping for the makings of sushi, or the preparations for a stir-fried dinner of vegetables with soybean curd (tofu).

THE EMPTY QUARTER

The Empty Quarter is what Garreau calls the wild open West. It is where many of the Indian Reservations can be found. More recently, it has come under the watchful eye of the Bureau of Energy which realizes that this is one finds low-sulfur, strip-mined coal, oil, gold, silver, molybdenum, copper, lead, beryllium, iron, zinc, potash, sodium, magnesium, and hundreds of other minerals. The lands of these areas have been scraped by monstrous commercial machines and has been referred to as the National Sacrifice Area. The towns in this area are small and widely separated. They have names such as Gillette, Cheyenne, Sundance, Fairbanks, Barrow. These cities are all isolated by great distances. Evanston is one of the biggest towns in Western Wyoming. It is 456 miles from Gillette, 372 miles from Cheyenne, and 515 miles from Sundance. The Empty Quarter ranges from Alaska (Barrow, Anchorage, Fairbanks) through Canada (Victoria Island, Baffin Island, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg) and into the United States (Spokane, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Denver). There are many natural resources in the Empty Quarter. One of them is oil.

Saudi Arabia today produces about nine million barrels of oil a day. Its technical capacity to sustain such production is expected to start declining soon after the year 2000, if political considerations do not force the issue earlier. Exxon allows that producing fifteen million barrels in the United States "will be complicated by the fact that much of the industry will have to be concentrated in areas, sparsely populated parts of the West.

In fact, Exxon figures that of the projected fifteen million barrels, almost 80% would have to come out of the Empty Quarter. Over half would come out of the Piceance and Uinta basins alone --the area in the vicinity of Evanston (Garreau, 1981: 300).

It is not surprising that there is a clear analogy between the oil producing areas of Saudi Arabia known in Arabic as the Rub 'al Khali and the Empty Quarter in the United States. Exxon sees the Empty Quarter as the new Saudi Arabia in the year 2010. The Empty Quarter, by the way, is a literal translation of that rich oil-producing area of Saudi Arabia. Both areas are dry and unpopulated. Rub 'al Khali means The Empty Quarter in Arabic.

Trapped in the Athabascan tar sands of Alberta alone, there is more oil than in the entire Persian Gulf. And that doesn't count the gold. Or silver. Or molybdenum. Or copper. Or lead, beryllium, iron, zinc, potash, sodium, magnesium, vanadium selenium, cadmium, or the hundred of other metals and minerals without which the twentieth century would screech to a halt (Garreau, 1981: 301-392).

Canadians have always known that the political culture of Ottawa conflicts greatly with that of the West. People in the West live in sparsely populated areas among majestic mountains and broad natural horizons. They refer to this area as "Big Sky Country." For decades the Canadians of the West have identified with the Americans citizens of the West. Both belong to the Empty Quarter. Stanley Roberts, the President of Canada West, has often alluded to both regions belonging to an economic group. He refers to this group as the North American common market.

Alberta could severely curtail the economic prosperity of the East by merely restricting oil production in Western Canada. There is even talk of separating the Empty Quarter of Canada from Quebec, the Foundry, and the Bread Basket.

THE BREAD BASKET

The Bread Basket is aptly named. It covers the wheat land corn producing fields and the cattle ranges of Canada (Regina, Winnipeg,, Thunder Bay) and the United States (Bismarck, Rapid City, St. Paul, Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City, Wichita, Amarillo, Fort Worth and Houston). Three fourths of the continent's wheat and corn comes from the Breadbasket. John Deere, the maker of Wheat trashing combines thrives in the Bread Basket. Farmers proudly wear their John Deere caps when visiting the town. Only four countries are known for their wheat exports. Australia, Argentina, and the Bread Basket of Canada and the United States. This area is also known for its cattle markets and pig farms. This is also the area known as the Plains, The Great American Desert. It is still the home of the cowboy. Blue jeans and cowboy books are common attire. Cowboys can be found in Manitoba (Canada) and all through the lower portions of the Bread Basket. Cowboy country overlaps, it should be noted, between the Breadbasket and the Empty Quarter.

The Cowboys in the United States think that they are alone. They think that they are a unique group. Their history is recorded as a saga, a movement which occurred when the United States when the West was being settled. This movement was not limited to the United States as it also occurred in Canada. In these travels, both the the new Americans and the new Canadians encountered the Indians, the original inhabitants of America. They wanted the land that belonged to these native tribes. They wanted it for farming and for cattle raising. Once they had fought the Indians and took their land, they began to fight among themselves. The ranchers wanted the land for grazing and the cow herders (the cowboys) soon fought with the sheep herders who also wanted the same land for grazing. Sheep eat grass differently than cows. The sheep destroy the grass because they eat the grass near its root system. The farmers wanted to remove the grass and plant wheat and other food for the new communities that settled the West. The sheep herders have now moved on to the Northwest and the cattle ranchers and farmers continue to dominate in the bread basket of the country.

QUEBEC

The final nation outlined by Garreau is Quebec. This is the largest province in Canada. It is three times the size of France. It is even larger than Texas. This proud nation is definitely as regional culture. The French spoken there has vestiges of the 17th century language. Over 80% of the population speak French. The culinary preferences is a very important part of life. Even its architecture is different. Quebec used to be the commercial center of Canada because of its shipping lanes. It is strategically located along one of North America's greatest trading rivers, the St. Lawrence. This river is the route out of the Great Lakes into the Atlantic sea. Later, this power shifted to Toronto with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Shipway. Quebec is relatively diversified. Economically, it has materials such as pulp and paper, iron ore, lumber products, aluminum, asbestos, and copper exported to the United States. And, it has manufactured goods and products from textiles to food products traded within Canada. Its most prominent technology is in the area of hydroelectrics. Hydro Quebec is a source of great national pride.

Manic 5 was the name of a hydroelectric project on the Manicouagan River built in the late 1960s. Although dwarfed by later achievements at La Baie James, when it was being built, Manic 5 became part of the Quebec national myth. Songs were sung about it; legends told. Men went off to work on it as if on a crusade (Garreau, 1981: 376).

The original French settlers (les habitants) were great explorers. Their trade took them from Quebec in Canada all the way down to the Gulf Coast in the United States.

It includes Toronto (originally Fort Rouille, 1749); Pittsburgh (Fort Du Quesne, 1754); Uniontown, Pennsylvania (Fort Necessite, 1734); Detroit (Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit, 1701); Vicksburg, Mississippi (Francois); Natchez, Mississippi (Fort Rosalie, 1716) Montgomery, Alabama (Toulouse, 1714); Mobile (de la Mobile, 1701); New Orleans (Nouvelle Orleans, 1718); and Point Comfort, Texas (St.-Louis, 1695).. Also, Sault Sainte Marie, Green Bay (St.-Francois Xavier), Atchison, Kansas (Cavagnol); Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (St. Nicholas, 1690); Winnipeg (Fort Rouge, 1738); Dorothy, Alberta (La Jonquiere, 1752); Memphis (Assomption, 1739); and, of copurse, St. Louis, Missouri (Garreau, 1981: 167)

The monarchs of France during the 17th and 18th centuries were only interested in exploiting the New World. They were not interested in creating settlements. When the British overtook the city of Quebec in 1759, this overwhelmingly French city came under the rule of the British. This created a great fear among the people of Quebec. They believed that their language would be destroyed. They were concerned that their Catholic religion would be replaced by English Protestantism. In essence, they way of life was being destroyed. But the British were not interested in changing Quebec. They kept the region as they found it. The rural society of French Canada was allowed to remain. The Roman Catholic Church was given even greater economic and political power in the region. These factors assisted in creating French Canada as a separate nation. This separateness was to later intensify; and by the early 1960s, a quiet revolution was beginning in Quebec. Pierre Vallieres was a leader of the FLQ (Front de Liberation due Quebec). He wrote a book while in prison in which he compared the French to the Blacks in America. He called his people "white niggers." They are second class citizens. Language became the rallying cry.

There are those who have been spat on or beaten up for speaking French in their own land. There are the jobs denied and the school doors closed even to English-speakers with a French accent. There's the chick Quebecoise refused service in a restaurant or boutique in the heart of her own home town of Montreal for not speaking English. The workers in Anglo-owned asbestos mines brutally suppressed by thugs paid for by their own government. The "two solitudes" of English and French lived side by side for generations, never communicating with each other (Garreau, 1981: 372).

LANGUAGE LOYALTY

It should be noted that two of the nine nations are dominated by non-English speaking populations: Quebec and Mexamerica. Both are unique cultures with substantial differences from the other nations. Their social histories speak of different heroes, the languages are substantially foreign, their cuisines are ethnic, their musical preferences are non Anglo-Saxon, and they take great pride in their language loyalty. It is not surprising to find that the citizens of French Quebec feel a strong affiliation with those of MexAmerica. Both had their destinies shaped by military defeats inflicted by Anglos. Both saw their economies being exploited by outsiders. Their natural resources of timber and minerals were exported to outsiders for a fraction of their worth. In 1967, Charles de Gaulle visited French Canada and rekindled the fires of dissent with his cry of "Vive le Quebec libre" (Long live free Quebec). Since then the outlines of this separate nation of North America has been more clearly drawn. Advertisers now know that they cannot market their products in Quebec unless it is in French and surrounded by the proud symbolism of this French nation.

Garreau is well aware of some of the difficulties in his Nine Nation Theory. He has a chapter which he entitles "Aberrations." It is in this chapter where he tries to explain how and why New York City is different from New York State. It is the center of the cloth trade, the home of the three major flagship television stations (ABC, NBC, and CBS). It is the center of the publishing industry and the financial hub of the nation. Washington, D.C. provides another example of an aberration. It is the seat of political power, the home of the lobbyist. It is interesting to note that Washington D.C. has more psychiatrists than any other city in North America. Garreau also voices some doubts about Alaska. Part of it is in Ecotopia and part is in the Empty Quarter. But Alaskans do not feel that they belong to either. Garreau seems to agree with them at times. Hawaii is another aberration. It shares many characteristics with Puerto Rico in that it began as a territory with second class citizenship ("island mentality") and that it has many allegiances to other cultures and languages. The problems with these exceptions to the Nine Nation Theory are minor. Most of the labels work very well. Some, such as the Islands, do not. But this does not destroy the theory nor substantially weaken it. Garreau has provided a good working hypothesis about the regional cultures of North America. His groupings have provided a useful tool for marketing analysts.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL CLASS

What is your name? Where do you come from? What do you do? These are the most common questions that Americans ask each other. The last one "what do you do? is a request for information about social status. The answers can cover a wide range of professions: banker, teller, security guard, surgeon, nurse, doctor of medicine, administrator, professor, school teacher, manicurist, dock worker, mother, and so on. If one knows something about the profession, he will elicit further information because in each occupation there is a further hierarchy of social status. A brain surgeon or a medical researcher is placed higher in social status than a general practitioner. In some countries such as West Germany, this social status is carried into the structure of the family. Doktor is someone with a Doctorate of Philosophy, but a Professor is one who is officially above other scholars in the department. The wife of a Professor in West Germany also shares this title "Frau Doktor Schmidt" as a prestige marker of social status.

The idea of social class came out of the discipline of sociology. The earliest work on sociology was directly connected to the needs of the oligarchy in France. These are the very rich people who own and control their nation. Prior to the French Revolution, the super rich wanted to understand the masses so that they could control them.

The French Aristocracy (The Aristocracy, The Upper Class)

The French Masses (The Poor Masses, The Lower Class)

Sociologists were concerned with the fascination that the masses had for certain charismatic leaders. These leaders, they felt, somehow understand "mob psychology." Sociologists created terms for the various social groups and these are stilled used today. There is the upper class (the super rich), the middle class (social values associated with respect for money and property), and the lower class (the masses who differ greatly in their manners and morals from the other social classes).

The French Aristocracy (les aristocrats)

The French Middle Class (les nouveaux riches)

The French Lower Class (les pauvres)

These class distinctions are essentially economic. Some have argued that there are really only two classes: the rich and the poor. The rich in most countries make up about 12% of the nation. In the United States they comprise about 4% of the people who own over 80% of all of the wealth. According to this view, the middle class and the lower class are among the poor. Other sociologists focus on the social differences among these groups. The lower classes solve problems non-verbally, their parents seek to control by force, and the respect for property is very low. The middle classes, on the other hand, tend to place great value on peaceful resolution to problems, they endorse the rhetorical styles associated with logical argumentation, and they cherish property values. The upper classes differ substantially from these other classes. They marry each other, their marriages are informally arranged, they attend the same colleges and universities which have exorbitantly high tuition which only the rich can afford (Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth), and they live in family compounds and may have numerous Summer and Winter homes around the world.

CONCLUSIONS

The focus of this book is the consumer culture in the United States and the implications of this new pattern of economic behavior as a model for Japan and for other nations which are adopting this new world culture. Advertising plays a major role in the creation of consumer cultures and many of the chapters of this book are specifically aimed at explaining how advertising works and how the tradition began in the United States and is being used as a model for other economic nations. The role of big business is also important in the creation of the consumer culture. Big business creates a corporate culture which can only survive through the use of consumers. Hence, the corporate culture and the consumer society belong together as related forces within these emerging new world cultures.

In this book, one finds a discussion of the role of advertising as the culture of commerce. Advertisers are shown to be professional persuaders. Their whole existence is to serve the needs of the corporate culture. What they want to do is to modify human behavior in order to persuade people to buy more goods and stimulate the economy. This chapter shows how the consumer culture was created in the United States.

There are also numerous insights on the history of advertising. It shows how the concept of a consumer culture was created and how it was applied with the cooperation of business leaders and advertising agencies. It took little over a generation for the consumer culture to become a reality. In this short period of time, a nation can become completely changed and made over. Advertising provides a powerful social force that has not been adequately addressed by sociologists and cultural anthropologists. What is so interesting about this phenomenon is that it has been recorded by members of these agencies themselves. They have shared their successes with others in their own periodicals. One only needs to turn to the latest issue of Madison Avenue, a New York advertising magazine, to find the most recent accomplishments of advertisers.

The relationship of television and marketing is also investigated. This is the perfect advertising medium. It brings together sound, movement, color, and a wide range of human emotions. Each frame of the television screen represents a single moment of an advertisement. Each picture is word a thousand words. Television exists only to sell advertisements. It is an economic tool of big business. It has been portrayed as a "waste land." This is true only when dealing with intellectual issues. As a economic tool, it is a gold mine that brings in many rewards for its business clients. There are many important consequences of this new medium of advertising. One of them has to do with the fact that in the United States there has been a rise in functional illiteracy. The new generation of consumers cannot read or write adequately and fail to use their native languages correctly as an expression of public culture. Television has created a new visual culture and a loss of the print culture in the United States. What is good for business may not be good for the nation. This chapter also focuses on marketing and how this industry has grown into a sophisticated business venture. The Baby Boom generation (1946-1964) was the most closely watched group of consumers in the history of the United States. Marketing organizations knew everything that one could know about those who where born during these years. They used this knowledge to persuade this generation into new patterns of purchasing goods. Children of this generation did not buy books. They bought cassette players, magnetic tapes of their favorite rock stars. They also bought new styles of clothes. They were good for the fashion makers of the popular culture. The blue denims or blue jeans became the trademark of this generation. Later on it would be shifted into the use of psychedelic colors and now it is focused on the torn jeans and the grungy (messy) look. None of these models of behavior reflect the sobriety and the civility of a the public self. Through the world of marketing, America lost is sense of public self.

Another area of investigation has to do with the archetypes of popular culture. Here is where industrial psychologists have helped the industry by noting that the parent of these children were thinkers and doers while there children were sensate feeling types. The archetypes of the sensate type and the feeling type was to adequately describe this new generation. They did things because it felt good. They hated logic and preferred to be ruled by their emotions. They were also into the five senses and wanted to live for the moment. They were not interested in why things happened. They only wanted to have things happen. They looked to television in order to find themselves in the popular images portrayed in situation comedies (sitcoms) and other popular programs which focused on loud noises, bright colors, very overt behavior, and rudimentary language. There is a generation gap between the parents of this generation and their children. They live in two different worlds. They speak different kinds of English. They do not desire similar things in life. Now that the consumer culture are having their own children, the die is cast. The new culture will live on. Where will the United States go for its intellectuals? The answer is becoming obvious. They are being imported from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, England, Germany, and so on.

An interesting area of study has to do with the use of subliminals in advertising. This chapter is important because much of what happens in the media is subliminal. Since the use of subliminals in advertising is illegal in the United States everyone claims not to know about it. Advertisers use them, but claim that their critics have vivid imaginations and are seeing things in their advertisements which do not exist. It should be noted that subliminals are only important when dealing with matters of sexuality. When advertisers focus on patriotism or family unity as themes in their advertisements, no subliminal messages are necessary. It is only when the advertisements have sexual implications or innuendoes that subliminals become a significant means of persuading consumers to buy the advertised product.

The study of psychological types do not only operate in novels, but they also use as literary types from novels to sell products in advertising. The stories that one read in books are now told on television through soap operas. These are called "soaps" because the major sponsor of these programs are soap manufacturers such as Proctor and Gamble. This aspect of popular culture is fascinating. Producers of soap operas and other television stories incorporate many of the techniques used by literary scholars. There is a whole new field of research which deals with this new aspect of popular culture. At Bowling Green University in Bowling Green, Ohio, many students from all over the world congregate to study this new phenomenon. The journals of popular culture provide fascinating analyses of the archetypes used in situation comedies, soap operas, and other forms of popular entertainment.

One of the concluding remark or more importantly one of the claims made in this book has to do with the implications that the consumer culture in America has for other world cultures such as Japan. One of the strengths of the Japanese nation has been its ability to incorporate other cultures into its own re-evaluation of everyday behavior. Everyone knows that in Japan there is a widening gap between the most recent generation of children and their parents. This same pattern of behavioral change can be found in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand. It is argued that the new world culture of consumerism which feeds only the needs of the corporate culture is responsible for these changes. This book is not against capitalism or consumerism. The authors are concerned, however, when it is presented as the only form of public culture. The problem occurs when old traditions and values are replaced by new ones only because they fulfill the needs of the corporate culture. What is good for business may not be good for the nation. What is needed is a balance between the new cultures and the old ones.

REFERENCES

Harris, Marvin. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. NY: Vintage Books, A Division of Random House. 1980.
Harris, Marvin. Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology of Daily Life. NY: Touchstone Book. 1981.
Harris, Marvin. Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Culture. New York: Vintage Books, A Divisionof Random House. 1977.
Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddle of Culture. New York: Vintage Books, A Division of Random House. 1974.