{"id":16619,"date":"2014-04-25T04:16:26","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T02:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=16619"},"modified":"2014-04-25T04:16:53","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T02:16:53","slug":"an-economist-looks-at-musics-insights-about-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/an-economist-looks-at-musics-insights-about-society\/","title":{"rendered":"An Economist Looks at Music’s Insights Into Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvard Magazine reports on an address by Jacques Attali:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
Nearly<\/span>\u00a040 years<\/span> after the publication of his 1977 book Noise: The Political Economy of Music,\u00a0French economist and writer Jacques Attali\u00a0spoke at Harvard on Monday about the relationship between music and a society\u2019s economic structure. \u201cMusic is a metaphor for society,\u201d said the founding president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and one-time adviser to former French president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterand. \u201cNoise is a violence, and music is a way of taming violence.\u201d \u00a0The lecture, \u201cMusic as a Predictive Social Science”\u00a0considered both the historical progression of music and its diverse visions of the future.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Music is deeply entwined with modes of production and can predict major societal transformations, argued Attali, who is also a musician and occasional conductor. Consider, for instance, the invention of gramophones and other recording devices in the late nineteenth century, which allowed music to be mass-produced. Previously, the economic model of music had centered on concerts, with musical performance bought and sold as a commercial product. By contrast, said Attali, recordings transformed the role of music in society: with all records the same price, the value of music derived instead from arbitrary rankings and measures of popularity. \u201cThe price<\/em> of records cannot be their differentiation,\u201d he observed. \u201cThat was the beginning of the end of the market economy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Music not only reflects<\/em> but predicts<\/em> social transformation, he asserted, and in 1977, he duly made forecasts of his own. His main prediction of a new human phase of composition<\/em>, in which individuals create and enjoy their own music and \u201cproduction melds with consumption,\u201d has been borne out by the rise of social media and digital music. Building on that prediction on Monday, he declared, \u201cMusic is more and more a mixture. If you look at the role of DJs, there is no distinguishing who is what\u2026It is the beginning of the end of property rights.\u201d In place of recordings, he predicted a return to live performance. \u201cPeople will continue to pay a very high price for concerts, but they will not pay anything, anymore, for records,\u201d he said. \u201cThe real thing that people will pay for is time.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In conclusion, Attali sketched several competing visions of the future. He warned against what he termed \u201cethnomodernity\u201d\u2014a resurgence of nationalism, both in music and in politics, that would impede the progress of globalization\u2014and likewise cautioned against a \u201cretromodernity\u201d born out of nostalgia for times past. He ended by articulating his hope for a form of modernity built on altruism and onwhat he described as the economy of the gift: \u201csharing music\u2026making music with others, learning the joy of making the other happy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Music<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvard Magazine reports on an address by Jacques Attali: Nearly\u00a040 years after the publication of his 1977 book Noise: The Political Economy of Music,\u00a0French economist and writer Jacques Attali\u00a0spoke at Harvard on Monday about the relationship between music and a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","category-financial-literacy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t