This week on Gladio Free Europe, Abram and Halal Sam have a casual discussion about the increasing adoption of American culture as the global standard. From the food that we eat to the clothing that we wear to the shape our buildings take, America’s output has had a massive influence on the lives that people around the world lead. This is by no means a new phenomenon, as early as 1925 Stefan Zweig wrote an essay titled “The Monotonization of the World” lamenting this very process, but there can be no denying that the trend has become entrenched much further since then. But this is not uncontested. Countries like Canada have strict guidelines about the percentage of radio and television content that must be domestically produced, China only allows 44 foreign films to be screened every year (seeing films not approved for the Chinese market is in fact the most common reason for Chinese people to use VPNs), and France has recently passed a law requiring foreign streaming services to invest 25% of their revenues in France to fund local productions. Will such moves be enough to buck the trend? Is continued Americanization inevitable even as America’s relative power continues to decline? Only time will tell.

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