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"You always imitate people richer than you," says Paris Interior Decorator Slavik, who designed "Les Drugstores" in Paris. Slavik makes the point, though, that the imitator usually puts his own imprint on what he imitates; he did not design his stores to resemble American drugstores, but "we knew the name would attract, and we were right." Though American-made goods, from cake mixes to Mr. Clean, are now taken for granted in many parts of the world, many of the typically "American" wares are just as derivative as Les Drugstores. They are frequently not made either in the U.S. or by Americans, are often produced abroad even more efficiently and cheaply than in the U.S. European canned and packaged goods, for example, are nudging American merchandise off the shelves of Greek supermarkets, and European cars built with Detroit's mass-production methods compete well in world markets with U.S. autos. Even more important than the products that the U.S. has exported are the techniques, which have enabled businesses in many parts of the world, particularly in Europe and Japan, to operate more efficiently. The U.S. influence not only punched holes in the traditional autocratic ways of the old aristocratic hierarchies, but popularized such modern ideas as cost accounting, mass merchandising and advertising techniques, supermarkets and discount houses.
As the leading youth-centered culture, America has a special allure for the world's adolescents, even those who like to burn U.S.I.S. libraries on occasion. Teen-agers abroad have taken to such Americanisms as picnics, transistor radios, blue jeans and the frug, and some young Europeans hit the roads as beatniks, much as alienated young Americans did in the early '50s. The U.S. influence, in fact, is sometimes a disruptive one in families abroad, where the desire of youths to imitate their freer American counterparts may run smack up against an authoritarian family structure. When Free University of Berlin students recently staged a sit-in, they asked an American visitor: "Is this the way they did it in Berkeley?"
The American's thirst for novelty means, of course, that he also continues to borrow from abroad. The U.S. is a melting pot not only for races but for ideas as well, and many of the American customs and habits that travel abroad have already been influenced at home by other cultures. From the King James Bible to Scandinavian modern furniture to LSD, some of the best and worst of culture in the U.S. has been imported. With the rise of U.S. power and affluence, much American music, cinema, art, design, ballet and theater have begun to meet and marry in midocean with their European counterparts, forming a sort of Atlantic culture.