very astute
there is no doubt that would destroy the culture and the nation
from the beginning of mercantilism, trade and exchange has required the suppression of cultural values ... a biographer of Spinoza recounts, for example, how members of the Dutch East India Company forbore performance or expression of their Christianity to avoid offending the japanese
the effects of capitalism and the market economy are well-studied and documented as to how they destroy traditional societies and values, and there is no dearth of books on the subject (see, e.g., James C. Scott,
The Moral Economy of the Peasant The Moral Economy of the Peasant ... - Google Book Search)
the effects on advanced societies are well known, as well (see Daniel Bell,
The Cultural Contradictions of Captalism,
The Cultural Contradictions of ... - Google Book Search)
consumerism has effectively destroyed American civic culture, and the effects can be clearly be seen in the headlines, as they detail th decline of that civilization
but as Marvin Harris points out in
Cannibals and Kings, value systems are articulated in support of economic systems and processes
hence, political correctness
in the place of the traditional American value system designed to create citizens, we have political correctness -- all people are the same, all value systems are the same, so trade can proceed with japan, china, and the rest of asia; Africans can head the Episcopalian Church, and a foreigner that can't speak English can be the governor of an American state
full speed ahead with globalism
to be an American, one only has to be able to buy and sell, and the more that one can buy, the more legitimation as an American (as is implicit in Kumar's outburst at the end of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004)
so, yes that would be a very effective way to conquer Iran