Globalization and the Economics of Culture

Can the Cultural Identity of the Nation Be Sold?

Abstract

The economics of cultural products and cultures in transition societies in the process of globalization is more under the influence of political than economic indicators and the real situation in the community. By introducing new criteria where everything in the culture is compared with the amount of profit achieved, the national cultural value is annulled and subordinated to the commercialization as the only value of the cultural product. The research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last ten years shows that similar matters give the same results and point out the fact that few preferable changes occur in the institutional and outside institutional culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The subsequent wave of globalization has the most important effect on the development of culture in creating conditions for confirming the qualities of culture in small languages, communities and transition. In such conditions, where criteria in evaluating the products of culture in all forms have been imposed, and where the economics and commercial effects are above the creative and artistic culture, the development of anything in the field of culture is impossible in perspective; however, its importance is reduced to the level of commercial manipulative rigging without the desirable, necessary, expected and possible quality solutions.