"And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our two remaining categories: for this process is clearly, at one level, the result of economic domination - of local cultural industries closed down by American rivals"
About this Quote
The subtext is anti-innocence. When people complain about “US models replacing everything,” they may think they’re talking about aesthetics or identity. Jameson insists they’re also talking about political economy: distribution networks, capital advantages, ownership, advertising, and the brutal fact that “local cultural industries” can be “closed down.” That passive construction matters. It frames the outcome as systemic rather than the result of a few bad choices by local elites, and it implies that what looks like consumer preference may be manufactured by unequal competition.
Contextually, this is the Jameson of late-20th-century globalization debates, when “Americanization” became shorthand for a world market with one dominant cultural exporter. He’s not romanticizing the local so much as pointing out what gets erased when culture is treated as a free-floating realm: jobs, institutions, and the capacity of a society to tell its own stories at industrial scale. The fear, he suggests, is less about jeans and Hollywood than about dependency.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: New Left Review: Globalization and Political Strategy (Fredric Jameson, 2000)
Evidence: And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our two remaining categories: for this process is clearly, at one level, the result of economic domination, of local cultural industries closed down by American rivals. (Issue 4, page 52). The quote appears in Fredric Jameson’s own article "Globalization and Political Strategy" in New Left Review, issue 4 (July–August 2000). In the scanned/PDF version, the passage is on page 52. This appears to be the primary source I could verify directly. I did not find evidence of an earlier book, speech, or interview containing this exact wording. Quote websites that attribute it to the 2009 book "Valences of the Dialectic" are likely citing a later reprint or reuse of the essay rather than the first publication. Other candidates (1) Valences of the Dialectic (Fredric Jameson, 2020)86.7% ... And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our tw... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jameson, Fredric. (2026, March 6). And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our two remaining categories: for this process is clearly, at one level, the result of economic domination - of local cultural industries closed down by American rivals. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-this-fear-that-us-models-are-replacing-167441/
Chicago Style
Jameson, Fredric. "And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our two remaining categories: for this process is clearly, at one level, the result of economic domination - of local cultural industries closed down by American rivals." FixQuotes. March 6, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-this-fear-that-us-models-are-replacing-167441/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"And this fear that US models are replacing everything else now spills over from the sphere of culture into our two remaining categories: for this process is clearly, at one level, the result of economic domination - of local cultural industries closed down by American rivals." FixQuotes, 6 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-this-fear-that-us-models-are-replacing-167441/. Accessed 15 Mar. 2026.
