International Policy(5): Why the world is flat
The Foreign Policy Association reviews 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century' by Thomas L. Friedman and asks: "When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?". Daniel H.Pink interviews Friedman for Wired:
Friedman's 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, provided much of the intellectual framework for the debate. "The first big book on globalization that anybody actually read," as Friedman describes it, helped make him a fixture on the Davos-Allen Conference-Renaissance Weekend circuit. But it also made him a lightning rod. He's been accused of "rhetorical hyperventilation" and dismissed as an "apologist" for global capital. The columnist Molly Ivins even dubbed top-tier society's lack of concern for the downsides of globalization "the Tom Friedman Problem."
After 9/11, Friedman says, he paid less attention to globalization. He spent the next three years traveling to the Arab and Muslim world trying to get at the roots of the attack on the US. His columns on the subject earned him his third Pulitzer Prize. But Friedman realized that while he was writing about terrorism, he missed an even bigger story: Globalization had gone into overdrive. So in a three-month burst last year, he wrote The World Is Flat to explain his updated thinking on the subject.
Friedman enlisted some impressive editorial assistance. Bill Gates spent a day with him to critique the theory. Friedman presented sections of the book to the strategic planning unit at IBM and to Michael Dell. But his most important tutors were two Indians: Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, and Vivek Paul, a top executive at Wipro. "They were the guys who really cracked the code for me." Wired sat down with Friedman in his office at the Times' Washington bureau to discuss the flattening of the world.
WIRED: What do you mean the world is flat?
FRIEDMAN: I was in India interviewing Nandan Nilekani at Infosys. And he said to me, "Tom, the playing field is being leveled." Indians and Chinese were going to compete for work like never before, and Americans weren't ready. I kept chewing over that phrase - the playing field is being leveled - and then it hit me: Holy mackerel, the world is becoming flat. Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language.
WIRED: So, we're talking about globalization enhanced by things like the rise of open source?
FRIEDMAN: This is Globalization 3.0. In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the era that introduced us to multinational companies, it went from size medium to size small. And then around 2000 came Globalization 3.0, in which the world went from being small to tiny. There's a difference between being able to make long distance phone calls cheaper on the Internet and walking around Riyadh with a PDA where you can have all of Google in your pocket. It's a difference in degree that's so enormous it becomes a difference in kind....
International Policy 1-4
posted by Robert Micallef at 5/19/2005 02:29:00 AM
Do the advantages of the flattening of the world (increasing globalisation)outweigh the disadvantages? Any views?
this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place
I like this phrase, even if it scares the hell out of me. It reminds me of Pink Floyd's song Time:
"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking,
and racing around to come up behind you again".
Robert, I don't have very much knowledge of economics, but as a linguist I can tell you that the translation industry has exploded, even for, and especially for, the "lesser" spoken languages of the world. Where companies understand that to go global entails the fundamental need to go local, I see a win-win situation. However, I don't know if this is the major tendency, or if the languages of trade and commerce will converge into a small handful of western tongues under the pressure of colonialist practices or simply of a desire for faster business. And from a social point of view, I feel that there needs to be much greater control of the global situation, as we are witnessing some extreme cases of ultra-liberalism which reduce workers not only to the components of a machine but practically to neo-slaves.
Obviously I'm talking about the No-Logo phenomenon studied in part by Naomi Klein, Taiwanese women and children paid very miserably to create shoes sold at astronomical prices in the West, etc. Another example is the boat of Indian computer programmers anchored just off the Los Angeles coast but in international waters, i.e. were workers' rights seem to be practically non-existent (this I mentioned in my blog last week). Is there no way of dealing with these loopholes? Or is it that those who try to confront the situation are abruptly stopped in their path?
New time brings new rules. Let’s take some look to the riches countries in our world, such us GB, France, Norway, America, Canada and etc. They rich, their economical power is really huge bud all of them had one similar mines or disadvantage inside. It’s pore, homeless people. So if such people exist in the riches countries and their government can’t help them, how can we ask them to help some other pore people in other parts of the world.
New time brings new rules, but there are some things that never can’t be changed. There are always were war, health and sick, rich and pure, strong and weaknesses, master and slave. And they will be in a future. Because it’s part of us, part of our living style. There always was some country who ruled all the other world, or some known part of it. But now in 20-21 century it become public and scaring, because these diff. between them become more and more gigantic. And there is nothing we can do with it. As we know West Europe and North America are using or spend for their needs more than 80% of natural resources or money. And what will happened if at least half of worlds countries become as rich as developed countries do??? It will brings one huge Global problem, which can put under the question the future of all human being and not only some part of them.
So maybe it is better to help to purest countries in some other way??? Because there is always will be master and slave. Besides our present situation is ruled by economists and politicians. And both of them first able need something suitable for themselves before they will “help” somebody. This is how it works. This is how it was whole or history.
Some questions or argues??? :) You know how to find me… (:
I thing increasing of globalization can, in some cases, fetch along some advantages, which should not be overseen. Especially for developing countries, they might be able to take advantage of their sources or individuality and possibilities which globalization offer them.
But may be it is simple for me to say this, because I cannot work hard all day for 1$ per day to earn ones living as lots of families in India or China do. I thing globalization brings many people in developing country as possibilities as hardship. It depends if they work or not. Another question is how they work…
But, all disadvantages mentioned are so serious, that I am not sure if particular possibilities offered via globalization can outweigh them.
We can not deny that the globalization in the word is going faster and we cant stop it ,in some ways we are helping it in the development. The process is going very fast and it decisive for the future of the world .The world can not be flat but as fast as the globalization is going I thing that we can not do anything about it .Its not that I like think this away but we have to be realist how much the world is chancing day after day ,the things are going in the globalization way .I am pro with this anti globalist because if I will see faith of my country (Albania) in this globalization word I don’t thing that will be the greatness .Every people that live in such country as me we don’t like the process globalization but we cant not stop it because this is unstoppably process even that we know that we will be that one who will suffer. Actually no body is doing something about it and this is the one of the point that I agree with the article ,because we cant stop the globalization throwing the stone in the of Mc. Donalds back ,I think we cant do nothing, just to accept that the globalization process will not be so much bed as we think it will be .
Please, calm down, Mr Friedman (and everybody else)
Why is there so much fuss about the globalisation? Ii might be caused by the fact
it is so much good in it and when something is too good nobody understands it and
wants to fight against it. Globalisation is (along with spreading of free market
institutions) one of the most beautiful (and helpful, too) things that has ever
happened to us.
There should be no fear of it, because at the end of the day it helps to all of us.
What I am saying is: Don't think short-run, think long-run instead. (We all will
have kids and they sometime will have, too.)
Antoine said 'I feel that there needs to be much greater control of the global
situation, as we are witnessing some extreme cases of ultra-liberalism which
reduce workers not only to the components of a machine but practically to neo-slaves.'
No offence, but that is probably the silliest argument I have heard in quite a long
time (in fact, it is not an argument at all) . That is just not true and if you look
into history (and even not that far), you have to admit it.
My argument (just a little walk through the 1st grade Economics Class):
If you look at the Czech Republic a couple of years ago, you see very cheap labour
and all the companies flowing in from abroad because of that. But what is happening now?
It might be quite amazing for someone who doesn't study (or know anything about)
economics, but not for the others who do. The labour cost is rising, because of every
little good that has been produced here. Basically, if you want to produce more, you
have to pay more to your employees. And this is what is going to happen (and I believe
it is already happening now) in Asia. If someone says:' we are witnessing some
extreme cases of ultra-liberalism', they just don't get it. For example, if someone
says: 'Let's impose tax on cheap goods and products from Asia,' it is the same as if
they said: Let's prevent the poor men and women of Asia become less poor (which
means richer).(!)
If the same people say: 'we must regulate the market' (or the way in which
the bad and so much impersonal market acts) -whichever way- it is as if they said:
'I want everyone to be worse-off, including me'. And I hope everybody knows
this is just not the way it works.
Another thing is the abuse of workers' rights, but it doesn't have anything to do
with what I've written so far.
The only thing I can approve of in the Antoin's remark is (and I put it differently):
The globalisation IS a win-win situation, even though many people try to scare others
talking about the grim future and terribly cheap labour which is exploited by the
forces of capitalist evil.
In my point of view there is much more advantages.
If you look at th multinational firms problem.
The multinational firms are bringing a lot of benefits to poor countries. They shifting there their plants because of cheap workforce. They maybe pay them less than in developed countries but still more than they could earn in another local firms. It encourage consuption in this countries and also help to local firms. The Multinational companies also bring with them better technologies and know-how, they new foreign markets, they can get from financial markets cheaper money, they are a good example for local firms.
anyway
The internet connect people around the world, they can share their minds. It is an icebreaker which can break up communist and other oppressive regims...
Friedman somehow feels qualified to make broad generalizations about the
'flattening of the world' on his principle of Globalization in his book. it
has full of craps that hardly to believe and lack of substantial research
and evidence. This book provides an impression of the headlines over the
last twenty years that have impacted globalization. There is a short of
pure evidence for his point of view and is based on Friedman's opinions
instead of figures and market trends in other word it is a one person point
of view. He bases the title of his book on a statement from an Indian CEO
_who is too hard to represent the world traders family population . The
weak which is a number of careful research have challenged Friedman's dead
principle influence. Friedman does have an advice for America in the
"flattened world" - considerably improve education and pupil achievement in
industrial revolution. Finally, Friedman put his idea in short that of
recent changes that have created today's aggressive global economic
revolution. However, his conclusion that tends to tell us goodness for the
U.S. - based on subjective facts supplied by outsourcing supporters - is
lead the whole fact to the dead end with great wrongness. But instead of
the overall idea of Friedman's principle there is some of the more serious
feature of Globalization (e.g., employment, social matter and
environmental) have being acknowledged more attention than before.
BTW , Peter i don't agree in some of ur points.
Axumawit
Improving and Golden calf
I dont want to be a demagog. It is question of believe. If you believe that work helped us not to be a monkey. That work improved our lifes. And I mean all sort of works (including slaves). Then you have to find Globalisation as a result of improving. Globalisation will aslo be just a part of historical epoch. I am not joking when I am speaking about "Spacelisation" in future.
On the other hand you can see relationship between Globalisation and Golden calf. It is true that people want something and especially now money. And it is nature. It is main reason for working.
As you can see it is natural and will continue until end of civilisation.
Globalization. Powerful word describing powerful world. Or a weak one?
Its strange that everybody knows for sure globalization is bad process but nobody indeed REALLY undertands what it means. Me including.
When speaking about problems of globalization, we should speak about African, Asian or Latin American countries; as these bear more the cons than pros in comparison to
"us", developed world.
One of big issues in globalization, at least in my view, is that this process brings market to the areas
where it was not before (and society's are not used to treat it). It is the same market as we know from our domestic countries. Only some "new"
players has appeared: MNCs. Every domestic market has a certain structure that keeps it running within certain limits.
WE have govermentgs pursuing economic policies, central banks for money stuff, others assuring social standards.
Without these it cannot work, since as we know free market is powerfull tool, but sometimes cannot see far enough.
My questin is: IS THERE BODY LIKE THIS PROVIDING THESE SERVICES ON AN INTERNATIONAL FIELD? BODY SETTING LIMITS, ENDOWED WITH POWER TO
SOLVE PROBLEMS, INTERESTED ON THE OBJECT...
Can it be done by particular single governments in developed countries? Not at all, they have troubles with themself, to rein "big fishes" like huge MNCs they have no chance.
so governments in Developing World? Pah.....no no
Is it UN? Not likely, if the "only" way to force MNCs into more friendly policies in LDC is creation of voluntary code of behaviour.
What about IMF? Institution that arelly places governmental-spendings cuts, when it is "invited" to some country, finally leading to education worsening....etc
On condition, there is some organization like this described "mystical one", nobody could raise a hand against globalization, since the disadvantages would get minor.
I must react to Petr, with whoom we before proved to have almost the same kind of thinking about economics, now i dont think he is right.
Yes globalization alone is generaly positive proces. But is Czech Republic good example for comparations? Yes, we had (have) quite cheap labour, but what is more
(much more) important is that this labour is "usable". We have organized and educated society (If u look at Japanese, this was the cause that made their "economic miracle" since 200 years ago it has comparable
output like countries nowadays called LDC (less developed countries)). If you come to some slums in Etiopia and say: "OK guys i have one million dollars, lets build some plant", they will not give you any single worker able to do
more than primitive manual jobs, and any single one being able to get trained.
I want to react even to Michal, its not that clear, that from big international companies these countries can have some technical spillovers, from the pure reason i ve just mentioned. Most of the people employed there do mainly stuff to which they do not need any special training. (Thats why India is nowadays having big boom in textile industry, since big source of skilled people is available from families with tradition of manufacturing on hand weaving looms.)
I am sorry that i could not react earlier. And i am sorry that i pushed you to read his looooong article. But just this topic cought my heart.
THank you for your lessons Robert, it gave me a much !!!
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