The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century [Audio CD]

 

 

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In "Slaugherhouse Five", Kurt Vonnegut introduced us to the Tralfamadoreans. These bizarre creatures said humans have a confined view of the world. It's as if we were sealed in a container, looking at the world down a long, narrow pipe. Thomas Friedman fits that description well in this book on how "globalisation" has developed over the past decade. Artfully portraying how large corporations are extending their reach around the globe, what he sees is intense and rewarding. What he misses is depressing and possibly calamitous. Although Friedman's sprightly style and unbounded enthusiasm is initially captiviating, a different feeling arises after you close the final page. The worst thing that can be said about this book is that everything Friedman says in it is true.

What is globalisation? Friedman sees it as technology spreading the wealth from industrialised to developing nations. Collapsing barriers, particularly "trade barriers" help promote economic development for both First and Third World countries. He proposes a ten step historical sequence of forces that promoted globalisation. These forces, in his view, enabled the spread of Western electronic technology, encouraging economic growth. From the fall of the Berlin Wall through "outsourcing" to utilise cheap labour, to wireless communication, these forces converged to give us a true "global village". It's more than widening the labour pool. Friedman cheers the idea of his taxes being done in Bangalore or CAT scans taken in Cape Cod being diagnosed in Melbourne. All that concerns Friedman is that the information be turned around overnight ready for delivery the next morning. He claims that the knowledge needed in New York is goading leaps in education to provide it in places like India and China. That "education" includes language-skill classes to enable "help-desk" staff sound more "American". The staff even adopt names like "Betty" or "Rob" to convince callers that they're "right next door" instead of ten thousand kilometres away.

While plodding through the extensive list of successful ventures around the planet, largely foster-parented by highly competitive high-tech US technology firms, you discern that he's quoting the same people repeatedly. Certain figures in India loom large, but it's hard to see how many of these new entrepreneurs are actually in the global market instead of building up their domestic economy. As you encounter these big players, it's hard not to see a top-heavy, unitarian structure emerging. Although these new firms are portrayed by Friedman as uniformly service agencies, the reader can't help but wonder if more Enrons are in the making. More collapses like that, which don't have to be triggered by fraud, will bring down many affiliated or dependent companies. Friedman argues that the international arrangement of "global supply chains" is so tightly integrated now that wars between states in that complex geopolitical structure have become impossible. But it doesn't take a war to collapse an economic bubble.

Friedman argues that his "bubble" will continue to grow, but takes but the merest peek at the societies underlying the inflationary process. We learn nothing of how widespread the technological advancements in the nations he visits are. In what he supposes is a glowing example, he makes a quick jaunt to an "untouchable" village in India, visiting a school teaching English and journalism. These people have little water, no sanitation and food is scarce. Are these the future "help desk" staff? Later, he laments the "quiet crisis" in the US where science and technology education is teetering. Nearly forty per cent of NASA's technical staff, he notes, is over 50 years old. Where will the replacements come from? India, China and Japan are already advancing in space programmes - a field where heavy rocketry and miniature electronics are necessities. And two of those nations possess nuclear weapons.

Friedman's glee at dispersing high-tech services around the globe totally ignores the many costs incurred. He thinks "outsourcing" is a "good thing" for the US economy because it will drive people to secure new talents. He likes having airline tickets electronically distributed. He extols the US business leaders promoting the "flat Earth" without noting that real wages are declining, wealth is being concentrated and skilled workers remain threatened over job security. He isn't aware of environmental issues being exacerbated by some of the factors he applauds. His rosy view of the world needs serious enlargement. Perhaps he might step along the hall at the New York Times and have a chat with his colleague Paul Krugman. He might actually learn something. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Karl Marx had predicted that capitalism would flatten the world:where it exhorts the bourgeoisie to abandon national seclusion and self-dependancy and chase for profits towards the inter-dependance of nations, leading the bourgeois to create images of themselves throught the world. Mr Friedman seems to concur wholeheartedly. He says we are now in Globalization 3.0: driven mostly by non-white, non-western individuals, because no matter what your profession, much of the work is going to be outsourced to better, cheaper producers in India and China.Most of the book focusses on the same basic point: the world is getting flatter, and the West must come to terms with the awarkening giants of China and India. As a 16 year old 11th Grader of Asian origin living in North America, I found the book strangely worrying. Though extremely readable, full of first person anecdotes and interviews, perhaps Mr. Friedman belabors the same message over and over too frequently.
Mr. Friedman's real contribution to me, however comes in the last 100 pages or so. I found his comments on the Middle-East very accurate. In their failure to "glocalize" Muslim countries are struggling even more as the world flattens. As he puts it, the curse of oil is partly accountable: countries that have no oil, or have run out of it are the first movers to democratize and hold their rulers accountable. No taxes means no accountability by the rulers, who are happy to run the status quo. Mr Friedman says that the founders of Al-Qaeda are not fundamentalists per se. He looks upon them as a political phenomenon: Islamo-Leninists with a utopian-totalitarian image of the world, caused by a "real cognitive-dissonance", spawned by the "poverty of dignity". Sami T. Ahmad.

This is a powerful book if somewhat flawed. It is always a treat to read well written prose and the topics he raises are important. For that reason I give this book five stars. Although the writing is first rate I was left with the feeling of that the perspective it offers is somewhat imbalanced. It certainly is a call to arms but perhaps Friedman over reaches in this manifesto and makes conclusions that do not always follow. In my opinion the "flatness" we now perceive, a seeming equality of individuals through the Internet is an illusions. The institutions which act like filters are still present and act as filters even now on the Internet. Through its evolution the Internet will more and more fall in line.
Globalization is a genie that the US in my opinion let out of the bottle. I do not see that it was an inevitability.
Further Friedman neglects to emphasize the sheer power the United States still wields in the world.

Are Y2K, the rise of China and the World Trade Center attack are all some of the most important events of this emerging century were these changes inevitable or where they the result of poor judgment of US foreign policy over the past 15 years? From my perspective many of these mistakes were made by our politician most especially in the Clinton years (despite good intentions) but there has also been a cancer that has been eating away at our society for a long while most notably in education and in our intelligence community. We have overestimated our power while trying to express a largess in a world that seems to only boil over more with anti-Americanism. We have served up hope to the third world without coming through which can only make the populations of the third world more anti-American. Certainly this is not only the fault of America as despots of the third world have made corruption into an artform and are the main impediment to alleviating world hunger. America's fault is in it's naivety. I choose to believe we have made the mess we are in now and we can change American policies if our leaders are quick and savvy enough.
Are the aforementioned events (Y2K, 9-11, the rise of China and the Internet) even connected - in my mind not necessarily. Only time can tell us. Certainly a dangerous convergence of events has occurred recently and we must adapt. The attack on 9-11 was a warning that is certain.

Another point I will take with issue with Friedman on is his pointing to the bursting of the dot.com bubble while saying that the Internet is making for a level playing field. There seems to me to be a contradiction somewhere in that - more than that the author will allow himself to admit.. We also have no way of know if indeed the Internet will level the playing field as it is something which is too new to make any conclusions about. That the Internet levels the playing field is a cliche.
There are certain contradictions to American culture in its embracing of freedom and materialism. We have seen before the triumph of Democracy over Totalitarianism during W.W.II but is it always the case? On one hand a Democracy makes easier the free exchange of ideas but on the other a Totalitarian regime like China can make great changes in a hurry as it functions with one mind. Will China receive through the Internet Democracy or will the economic power recently given to the totlitarian regime make that change impossible. That is one of the great questions for the future.

One more point I would like to make and it is this: if history has shown us anything, the world never was nor ever will be, "flat". In that way the author neglects some of the great lessons of history.
Still a very stimulating and thought provoking read.

I also recommend The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Gladwell

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5.0 out of 5 stars 20/20 Vision
There's an old saying that hindsight is 20/20. Most people need distance to attain perspective. That old adage does not apply to Thomas Friedman. Read more

Published on Dec 13 2006 by Aviva Shiff

5.0 out of 5 stars Canada Can Cash in on Outsourcing (What US Calls Nearshoring
My current two favorite books are THE WORLD IS FLAT by Friedman and
THE BLACK BOOK OF OUTSOURCING by Brown & Wilson (Wiley Press) which complement each other beautifully... Read more

Published on Mar 30 2006 by Mary Larson

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Two Books for Canadians on Outsourcing!
Kudo's to Thomas Friedman for bringing the much needed attention to the impending business issues of offshoring, globalization and outsourcing. Read more

Published on Mar 16 2006 by Michael Lamour

5.0 out of 5 stars Three cheers for Globlization
Thomas Friedman regales us with more boosterism for capitalist globalization. He's a clever writer, easy to read, and I had to give him credit recently for coming out strongly in... Read more

Published on Feb 23 2006 by Jason Beign

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for your future
I am currently reading this book and can not put it down. I have made reference to it numerous times in the three days i have had it and feel that it should be mandatory reading... Read more

Published on Feb 12 2006 by Luke K. Songer

3.0 out of 5 stars In America or around the world. . .,
From the first few pages when Friedman leaps from level playing fields to a flat world, it is almost easy to understand why the cover shows ships falling off the edge of an... Read more

Published on Feb 3 2006

4.0 out of 5 stars A glimpse into our children's future
A good collaboration of ideas for globalist in developed and developing nations on the roots of where globalization has come from and where it is going. Read more

Published on Jan 10 2006 by Whitewalls31

4.0 out of 5 stars Globalism 101: A General Overview
Friedman succeeds in contextualizing 21st century globalism while drawing interesting comparisons and offering reasonable advice. Read more

Published on Jan 1 2006

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible and predictable
This was a severe disappointment to those looking for a thoughtful, insightful book. It essentially takes the biggest headlines of the last 10 years and ... Read more

Published on Nov 27 2005 by Jason Fung

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
I found this to be a very interesting book. We live in an exceptional period of time and change is happening all around us. Read more

Published on Nov 1 2005 by Mat

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