WHAT PRICE FAME?

George Mason Univ. economist Cowen presents an unpersuasively optimistic look at the alleged benefits attendant upon the

commercialization of fame. The cult of celebrity is ascendant, but is it all bad? Doesn’t fame, asks Cowen, goad artists and scientists and politicians to reach higher and take the kinds of risks that ultimately enrich all our lives? And isn't there enough capital in the star machine to fuel diversity as it seeks a profit, encouraging a thousand flowers to bloom, especially when there is not a consensus who is the top petunia? It is a small price to pay, this adoration, for a big payback from the performer, though Cowen neglects to address the high costs—of clothing and assorted accoutrements—that come with fandom. Cowen certainly makes clear the uncoupling of fame from merit and virtue—"commercialized fame, by directing fame away from moral merit, frees ideas of virtue from the cult of personality"—but he doesn't make a compelling case for why that’s such a good idea, despite his contention that commercialization produces "a greater quantity and diversity of fame." Certainly most contemporary artists, for all their diversity, continue mostly to eke out a living, although technology has increased their potential audience. Cowen tries to spark sympathy for stars, who can lose their creativity along with their privacy, or worse yet "lose themselves by pursuing the adoration of the masses," but that’s a plea that doesn't play even in Peoria. Too often, Cowen's writing—"many of the costs of fame fall on the famous. . . . It is the star who is alienated under capitalism, not necessarily the workers"—inane and downright foolish enough to undercut the provocation of his other comments on the state of fame in today's world. Cowen never mounts a convincing argument that celebrity worship has a trickle-down effect, democratizing paybacks for

those who find their muse.