MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE / 115 head 研 CBS Records when sony bought it in 1988 , once boasted in an interview that he was tone-deaf. 、、 I mean I れ g , ' ' he hedged somewhat. 、、、åy ear is ()kay' but somewhere ℃ en the ear and the throat there is something mrssrng. '' managers on the lookout for hOt new talent, record company A&R (artist and repertoire) men who buy the talent, pick the songs' and remake the personas the singers they contract for¯though less 0f this happens now that top smgers and their managers and lawyers wield such power in the industry—are temperamental and highly mobile. A singer's trade- mark is on his or her birth certificate or business and it can be moved tO another company whenever the contract exmres. Since the average life Of most successful pop stars 燔 no more than five years¯ three hit albums, at the most—loyalty is not a prime value for either the companies or the and temperament is frequently put tO the service Of tough bargalmng. Singers are Of course nOt()rlOUS for temperament; lt was not un- common for a great diva tO walk out Of the opera house just before a performance because Of a real or for reason at all. The business types can be just as temperamental as the artists. The great record entrepreneurs styled themselves as characters. Yet- nikOff, WhO began his career as a buttoned-down corporate relnvented himself as a ShOW-biZ personalitY' cultivating in the pro- cess a well-deserved reputation for rage and abusiveness. His screams shattered glassware, it was and he resorted tO tantrums in which he pummeled walls and spit out curses. UsuallY there was method in his madness. He inspired loyalty bY being attentive tO the stars' Jet- ting 0 仟 t0 California 。、 because Michael needs me"' and he cultivated the myth at CBS, which was the basis 0f his power and his license to be outrageous, that the artists were really not the company s. Yetnikoff defended his management style bY pointing out that this is a business 、、 where the product can talk back tO where it can 尾 4 川 back at you. '' Clive DaviS' yetnikoff's predecessor as head of CBS Records, discovered that art1StS can express temperament a variety 0f ways. when Davis signed Janis Joplin' she proposed that they sleep together t0 celebrate the deal. He apologetically turned down the offer, but promised that CBS wasn't as formal as it might seem. A member of the band then suddenly got up from behind the conference table stark naked. "This is how informal ルビ are"' Joplin 11 is supposed tO have said. Had anyone in 1975 predicted that the two oldest and most fa-

MASS PRODUCTION IN POSTMODERN TIMES / 279 cry of the 1990S as the president' the Republican PartY' and some prominent American companies tOOk the pledge. The trouble was that, however heartfelt the patriotic desire to patronize American productS' the pledge C00 旧 not be kept. ln the age Of globalization, inSlStence on purlty Of lineage in indeed most products ln as much sense as n()tl()ns Of racial purity. There is little Of either in the world today, and the illusion 0f purity 0f origin' whatever form lt takes, can drive human beings tO indeed murderous be- havior. ・ what is an 。、 American" car? A Geo prizm' which is really a Toyota corolla made in california? A Geo Metr0' marketed by GM but made by suzuki and lsuzu? What is a 、 'foreign" car? A Jaguar made in England bY a wholly owned Ford subsidiary? A Mazda Navaho, which is really a Ford EXPlorer made in Kentucky?49 some companies, including Monsant0' promised tO pay as much as $ 1 , 000 to any of their employees who bought an "American" car ・ But all had different definitions 0f what an American car was. (Frank- lin Bank of Southfield, Michigan' devised a Buy American plan for its employees under which it rejected Hondas made in Ohio but allowed chrysler minivans made in canada. ) As the 1992 presidential elec- tion campaign got under way' the Bush-Quayle campaign announced itS Buy American plan and boasted that its fax machines came from Texas and itS computers from san Jose. But one company was Jap- anese and the 0ther Korean. A spokesperson explained' "We did try very hard t0 get American-made PC'S' but the ones available were ” 50 way out Of range. A key tO the American strategy tO save jObs in the United States once U. s. -based manufacturers had fled American shores was tO in- sist that foreign companies manufacturing in the United States in- clude substantial 、、 local content. '' But the concept leads inexorably into a thicket oflegalcomplexity and logicalconfusion. For example' Hondas made in canada, according tO the customs dO not qualify for tariff-free treatment because they 信Ⅱ short 0f the required 5()-percent 、 'North American content. " lt is not that Canada is not North American, but that t00 many parts can be traced back tO a network Of Japanese suppliers. The Japanese government maintains that more than 60 percent 0f 931 Japanese-owned companies in the United states Obtain 。、 tWO-thirdS Of their materials in but many Of these 、 Suppliers are Japanese-owned. に g 引 legerdemain and accounting alchemy can turn American parts

MASS PRODUCTION IN POSTMODERN TIMES / 273 signed Escort t0 Mazda, which would have meant that the parts would have been 8()-percent Japanese. But a problem surfaced. Changes in U. S. law required that Ford's entire fleet average 27.5 miles a gallon. ln order t0 keep selling high-margin' gas-guzzling Continentals and Town cars on which the company's profits de- pended, Ford had t0 average-in the fuel-efficient Escort. But the small car could not be counted for this purpose unless three-quarters Of everything that went intO it was made in the United states. SO Ford agreed that it would design the outside 0f the car and Mazda would engineer the inside. The assembly would be divided between the Ford plant at wayne, Michigan, after it was extensively ret001ed' and the company's state-of-the-art facility at Hermosi110' Mexico. The sup- pliers would be primarily American. lt was an exciting relationship but not an altogether smooth one. Bilingual marriages pose an added risk Of miscommunication. president Yoshihiro ・ da estimates that when he and his top exec- utives would meet their counterparts at about a third Of every- thing said was lOSt or garbled in translation. Even more as Dee Kapur, Ford's manager 0f the pr0Ject' soon discovered' 、 'the design and specification used by the two compames 'were completely different. Like night and day. " The computerized engi- neering system in Detroit could not talk tO computers 34 Hiroshima. Mazda insisted on specifications for materials and parts that Ford executives and suppliers found astonishingly (and maddeningly) ex- acting. HOW were Detroit engineers supposed to know that Malay- sian license plates are oversue and wouldn't fit Ford's design for the license-plate recess? Mazda engineers insisted that deadlines be met; m1SS1ng even a day or tWO could produce anger and scorn. Ford 3 5 managers found themselves working eighty-hour weeks. Despite the $ 200 million Ford had been obliged t0 invest in its Michigan plant (not t0 mention the $120-million inducement pack- age offered by the state 0f including worker-training sub- sidies, road and rail-spur improvementS' and $ 80 million in tax abatements), Ford believes that it got its money's worth. 36 Thanks to Mazda's strict scheduling, the new Escort had about 60 percent fewer last-minute expensive design changes. The target 0f 34.2 miles per gallon had been exceeded. TO be sure' had the American company done the project by itself' it would have cost $ 600 million less' Kapur estimates. But the education Of the Ford 、 10t0r Company was an lnvestment in the company's future. company executives say that 33

THE GLOBAL GROCER / 217 ers lce cream, which dates from lCe-Cream business started a year after the CivilWar, and Breakstone's, the outgrowth Of lsaac and Joseph Breakstone's dairy store on the Lower East Side 0f Manhattan that opened in 1883. ln the early 1980S Kraft had been briefly merged with Dart lndustries and had acquired nondairy busi- nesses, including the maker 0f KitchenAid home appliances, but the mix Of hardware and cheese was not a happy one, and Kraft exec- utives had rid themselves Of their nondairy businesses just before Hamish Maxwell moved in on them. On October 17 , 1988 , Maxwell called John M. Richman, Kraft's chairman, with an 0 飛 r t0 buy all the company's stock at $ 90 a share. lt was a call Richman had been expecting. He was as well aware as Maxwell that predators were lurking about 100king for corporations with ample enough tO finance their own de- mise. He knew that his company was a likely target because 0f what once were considered prudent business practices. ltS plan was fully funded. lts earnings were high. lts debt was 10W. Twice a year he had been assembling his stable 0f lawyers and investment bankers in a 、 'fire drill" just in case 、、 I got a call some afternoon. " The hypothetical enemy in the war-gamrng 0f a hostile takeover bid was always Philip Morris. The telephone finally rang. "lt's nothing personal," said Maxwell' ” 17 “ Dear Hamish," Richman replied in a business iS business. letter three days later, 、、 You did not see fit tO discuss your takeover attempt when we were together at the Grocery Manufacturers Of America meeting last Wednesday and ThursdaY' nor did you see fit t0 tell me that you were planning on filing a bizarre and baseless law ” The suit against me and our Board Of Directors on Monday. next day Maxwell wrote back: "l would have preferred t0 discuss our Offer with you prior tO taking the actl()ns we commenced. HOW- ever, in the current legal environment in which we I accepted the advice tO proceed as we did as a business decision.... Yours S1n- cerely, Hamish Maxwell." Another four days passed. Then on Oc- tober 25 Richman wrote a categorical refusal 0f the Philip Morris Kraft was not 'for sale' and iS not 、 for 0 飛 r. "Dear Hamish: , ” 18 sale. The resistance struggle lasted only one more day, culminating in a three-hour negotiation between the tWO corporate heads alone a hOtel room at O'Hare Airport. Under the terms Of the agreement struck at 1 : 00 A. M. , Kraft became a division 0f PhiliP Morris, t0 be

GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT AND LOCAL TASTE / 153 culture IS reawakening the appreciatlon Of local cultural traditions and the preciousness of cultural diversity. Still, the power 0f glob 引 commercial musrc grows with each new breakthrough in the tech- nology 0f reproduction. VI. 、、 From the outset," Tom Freston, chairman Of MTV explains, 、、 our vrsion has been that this would be a worldwide rock-and-roll net- work. " MTV alone claims tO have a regular audience in the hundreds Of millions. An increasmg number Of imitators are reaching tens Of millions more. Even though the figures given out by the music video networks tend t0 be hyped—a former MTV executive says that in the early 1990S not more than 200 000 households in the United States were tuning in during any fifteen-minute period—the music video now commands a vast world audience. An enterprising Hong Kong—based company is beaming MTV int0 400 , 000 households in lndia, to the delight of the middle-class kids whose families have the satellite dishes tO receive it and tO the con- sternation Of the government. Mahesh prasad, lndia's secretary Of informatlon, 、 vorries about the SOCial impact: own SOCial ethOS' our cultural values—、 would not like them tO be subverted. " Even though lndia iS reverslng nationalist policies Of the past, he is con- cerned that satellite television IS grvrng poor people "dreams which cannot be fulfilled. lt can create social tensions. " lntrusive technology IS overtaking long-standing government policy. Ads for such items as jewelry and baby food thatare well beyond the reach 0f most lndians were banned on state television for fear Of stimulating envy and greed. But thanks t0 powerful boosters used by unregulated cable compantes, politically incorrect commercials, rap and rock nymphets from faraway places are entering lndian homes. MusiC video is not only forcing changes in culture but alSO in politics. ln 1984 Ronald Reagan rested his case for reelection on an eighteen-minute mix Of and story television. years later George Bush'S campaign chief released a notorrous TV com- mercial featuring Willie Horton and the garbage in Boston Harbor that bore the telltale traces Of music-video artistry. The use Of this powerful new commercial art form IS now standard in elections ln the United states and in many Other countries. lts influence on H01- wood films and TV series such as M 川 / Ⅵ , where all car chases

404 / GLOBAL DREAMS administrations had consistently underestimated Japanese industrial prowess. At the same time they assumed that America's hegemomc power meant that Japan, not the United States, would have to change course tO avert a collision. Neither the government nor the largest manufacturing corporations had adapted tO the new global environ- ment or changed 01d habits fast enough to compete effectively with Japanese firms that had been focused on the glob 引 market for de- cades. lnstead, increaslng pressure on Japan to change its ways of dOing business became the centerpiece Of American strategy for deal- lng with its growing deficit. ln a world Of complicated, often mysterious glob 引 connections, however, getting your way can turn out t0 be a curse. ln the early 1980S U. S. negotiators insisted that the Japanese build cars in the United States, and the result was that the Japanese took over a still bigger share 0f the U. S. market and extended control over the auto- mobile parts and accessories business. ln 1984 Secretary of the Trea- sury Donald Regan wentto Tokyo to demand that the Japanese open up their financial markets to U. S. firms and raise the value of the yen. Regan was emphatic. 、、 The message that l'm giving to your Ministry Of Finance . . IS.• actlon, actlon, action, that's what I want now. l'm ” 1 through with patrence.. The top Japanese businessmen who made up the audience got the point. A Yen/Dollar Agreement was reached in which, according tO a top adviser to the negotiation, 、 'the U. S. side got almost all it asked for. '' Only when it was much t00 late did the U. S. government discover that the maJOr triumphs it scored over Japan at the negotiating table in the 1980S would drive the nation deeper into debt. There were two conventional, plausible, but wrongheaded assumptions behind the American demands. They proved to be expensive. One was a belief that once the Japanese financial industry was more open to foreign lnvestment, Wall Street banks and securities houses would devour a sizable chunk of the Tokyo capital market. The thought that Japa- nese banks, insurance and securlties firms, having ac- cepted the invitation tO compete on a global scale, would proceed to take over WalI Street firms and California banks occurred only to people wh0 understood something about Japan. They were not in charge. Thanks to its huge trade surplus, Japan had enormous capital reserves that its financial industry used tO buy into or buy up major assets across Amer1ca. The second assumption was that a weaker dollar would improve the U. S. trade balance without shifting the balance of world eco-

A MATTER OF TASTE / 243 Dennis Hayes, the founder 0f Earth DaY' says that 、 'you could easily ” 23 make buying a roll 0f toilet paper subJect t0 a master's thesis. 。、 Green' products C01 e in packages and prod- ucts come in recyclable packages. coffee shoppers do not have the information tO decide whether Melitta's "natural brown" filter for 。、 COffee lovers WhO are alSO the a more responsible purchase than the company's white filter' which is oxygen cleansed" and 、、 envrronmentally friendly. " Bleached-paper products contain diOXin, a POtent carcinogen ln but this lmportant fact is not mentioned on either the brown- or white-filter packages. some ecologically correct claims have been patently mis- leading. Mobil was forced t0 remove its 、 'biodegradable" claim for its Hefty trash bags, most of which are destined for landfills where nothing degrades. ThirtY-year-01d hot dogs retrieved from landfills have been found tO be virtually in mint condition. Combining convenience, tempting lOOks and smells with assurances Of good nutritlon and concern for the planet is a daunting task. But supermarkets in affluent neighborhoods in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world are making major efforts t0 d0 this. These temples 0f abundance with aisle after aisle 0f dazzling choices, all well lighted, well heated' and well cooled' are open twenty-four hours a Offering a safe envlronment in which all sorts of food fantasies can be indulged. Supermarkets are increasingly in the business 0f selling time in the guise 0f selling food. NOt only dO they promise tO save hours in the kitchen with micro- wavable culSIne and tO shrink the dinner hour tO twenty minutes with all sorts of"ready t0 serve" and 。、 quick eating' products' but they have developed technology t0 compress the amount 0f time spent shopping. scanning devices will soon be widely installed in shopping carts and the t0tal price will be instantly available by the time the shopper is ready tO leave the store; lines at checkout counters will become as obsolete as thelong P01e with which the corner grocer used to pull cereal boxes down from the top shelf. Yet in HarIem, the south Side 0f chicago' and other depressed areas throughout the United choices are limited. Supermarket chains have abandoned many 0f these neighborhoods t0 local gro- cery stores and bodegas. The produce is old and wilted' and the prices are significantly higher than in better-off neighborhoods. Ch0ices run heavily t0 aging brands 0f canned meat and Frit0S' Chee ・ tos, Snickers, white wonder Bread' and Little Debbies cup-

96 / GLOBAL DREAMS As publishing has merged int0 the entertainment industry, b00ks for the general reader now lncreasingly make the front page. Kitty Kelley's account of Nancy Reagan's alleged lunchtime trysts with Frank Sinatra and Bob Woodward's account of General Colin Pow- ell's private agomnng over the Gulf r offered inside peeks into the corridors Of power that became top news stories all over the world. Famous novelists such as Norman MaiIer now find themselves re- viewed on page one 0f the N ビル黻石川ぉ . Authors have become celebrities largely because 0f the money they are reported t0 earn. ln the 1980S the public's interest in other people's money reached new heights as magazmes and newspapers devoted ever more space tO the salaries, bonuses, fabulous deals, and purported net worth 0f indus- try tycoons and media celebrities. A few star authors now JOined their ranks, packaged and marketed like rock stars and sports figures, although neither the fame nor the money was quite on the same scale. But trade-book divisions are at the mercy Of customers' whims, changing fashions, and the competition from a variety Of ment enterprises skilled in luring prospective readers tO easy listening or mindless vlewing. Publishers know that Samuel Butler, the great English novelist who was not hugely popular in his day, had it right: 、、 God will not have any human being know what will sell. " On the other hand, educational and scientific book publishing, though it rarely makes headlines or the TO ) show, makes money; profit rates range between 15 and 25 percent as compared with 5 or 6 percent for trade publishers if they are lucky. A business built on bOOks that are required reading is obviously more stable than one built on catching the consumer's eye at a mall bookstore or hoping for the sort 0f publicity or reviews that make millions 0f people feel guilty or deprived if that b00k is not on their night table. Thus Simon & schuster is a whOlly owned subsidiary Of an entertainment con- glomerate, but it has alSO become the nation's largest educational publisher by paying over a billion dollars t0 acquire Prentice Hall, Ginn & Company, and other suppliers 0f marketable information t0 largely captive audiences. Trade publishing now accounts forjust 23 percent Of Simon & Schuster's tOtal revenues. Reference bOOkS have a much more predictable global market than trade books. At R0b- mson's Galleria in Manila, a huge shopping mall in a city with a sizable middle class and millions of wretchedly poor people, the E れ c clO 々ど d B れ〃 4 IS available on easy monthly terms—liter- ally a lifetime purchase. There is a genuinely global market for scientific publishing. Most

GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT AND LOCAL TASTE / 149 established in 1978 that was known as the Network. The members divided up the U. s. market; each member claimed a 、、 territory"' a group Of radiO stations he could influence. But more than sales patter and personality was involved. This heavy expenditure 0f the U. s. record industry for "indie" promo- tIOn ・—some 30 percent Of pretax prOfitS' according tO one estimate¯ involved the liberal use of kickbacks. Fredric Dannen describes how it worked: The former program director Of a medium-sized california radiO sta- tion, for example, admitted in 1987 that he had taken about $ 100 , 000 in cash from an independent promoter over a three year period. Every week he got a 、 'birthday card" in the mail' delivered t0 a post office bOX he had set up under an assumed as instructed by the indie. Each week he added three or four songs for the promoter and found 18 between $ 500 and $ 1000 in his birthday card. The station would play the songs in return for birthday cardS' cassettes, and record jackets stuffed with cash or for a supply 0f cocaine. The promoter would get a "spiff" of $ 7 500 from the record company each time a station reported tO RadiO む ' Records that it played the right song, but station managers often lied or played the song at 2 : 00 A. M. The result was that many aggressively promoted songs didn't sell. Network was not a good Dan- nen concludes.Nevertheless, the have made a comeback in the 1990S. V. while the global spread of pop music originating in the English- speaking world has been greeted enthusiastically bY hundreds 0f mil- lions Of fans, it has elicited cries Of from politicians and citizens groups around the world. and Other industrial countries try in ways tO restrict foreign music. The French government is encouraging the development of a French superstar tO compete with American rock stars on the glObal stage. U. s. record-company executlves say they are not worried. know the French. lt's a pride thing like the なビ施〃 4 々々巳 Eur0POP doesn't travel like American rock. " Canada has a 、 'domestlc law for AM radio; 30 percent of the music played must be Canadian.

86 / GLOBAL DREAMS of his professionallife in GütersIoh, as a provincial. 。、 The distance between Hamburg and Gütersloh is more than a five-hour train ride. ' Because Grüner & Jahr is not owned 100 percent by Bertelsmann, Schulte-Hillen has a certain independence ln running the magazine division that Other division heads lack. An important influence on Reinhard 、 'lOhn was the Christian Dem- ocratic idea Of a "SOCial market economy" that was particularly strong in Germany JlISt after the war. He is a fervent believer in the free market, but he is alSO strongly committed t0 the idea that "own- ers Of large assets consisting Of the means of production" need to "acknowledge their responsibility as trustees with regard t0 the gen- ” 12 eral public. Business must develop a ne 、 understanding Of social responsibility, he wrltes, because the welfare state has reached its limit. "Taxes and benefit deductions have reached a level which is generally considered excessive. The temptation tO evade this pressure imposed by the community is becoming greater. " The opportunities are also greater, he might have added, because the increased mobility of capital allows global companies to locate their production and direct their profits tO countries where the state demands little in the way Of taxes and benefits. From the start Bertelsmann was a benevolent, paternalistic em- ployer. Long before Bismarck's sociallegislation was introduced in the late nrneteenth century, Bertelsmann had its own safety net. The proprietor and his family 100ked out for the employees, visiting the sick, supplying chickens, old clothes, and help with doctor bills in emergencies. Mohn acknowledges that the rise of both the welfare state and labor unIOns has brought more security tO workers. But having achieved great gains for workers over the years by "confron- tation" and 、 'class struggle," old-style unions are now obsolete, MOhn says, because the workers themselves don't find such tactics "con- VIncing. " Bertelsmann has umons, but only about a quarter Of its work force in Germany are members. The only economic advantage IS access tO the strike fund, but since the company doesn't have strikes, for most employees this feature IS not worth the dues. German labor practlce is based on ideas Of codetermination,labor- capital partnership, and workers' councils, and Bertelsmann pushes these ideas tO the limit. The head Of the workers' council, a former accountant at the company, IS an enthusiastlC company booster, a qmet-spoken man about as far from a German Joe Hill as could be lmagined. Bertelsmann workers by and large are financially more