The World is Flat
A Brief History of the 21st Century
Thomas L. Friedman – ISBN – 9780312425074
O.K. . . . I’m sorry !!! A customer recently made the innocent inquiry: “Have you read The World is Flat?” My rejoinder was a little surly, even for me. Ever since Friedman became a raving liberal lunatic I wouldn’t trust anything he said, so I had not read it, nor did I plan to. But a friend loaned me his copy and insisted that I at least skim it. I did, and I’m glad. It was worthwhile.
Being Friedman, he spends far too much time dropping names of his contacts around the planet to let us know how important he is and all of the places he’s been. Being a world recognized Pulitzer Prize winning journalist would have been sufficient for most of us.
He’s loquacious, and his style here reminds one of a conversation not a book. He does a first-rate job of documenting statistically what every reasonably well informed person already knows, and his “gotcha games” with the great powers were to me offensive.
A good editor—permitted--could eliminate half the book without omitting anything of importance. With those caveats, however, he is masterful in explaining his observations and conclusions.
My grandkids often use the button on the VCR to “fast forward thru the boring parts.” Do the same; it is a good book to skim.
He makes the point that recent technology has made it necessary to view the world as an integral unit. Flat is the term he uses; thus modern tools are flattening the world. (He reassures us that he doesn’t really believe the world is flat. Thanks, Tom, we were worried.)
Global crossing, while bankrupting itself laying cable all around the world, set the stage for universal digital communications at affordable prices. Consequentially the modern web is capable of incredible feats and has encouraged the genius of myriad individuals who have authored numberless programs to facilitate the organization and movement of the information which Google and Yahoo direct us to.
Entire libraries and archives are being digitized by high quality, low cost labor in India and other places which would be impossible without this technology. Banks, hospitals and others can outsource bookkeeping, data entry and management around the world, providing inexpensive services and lower prices while creating wealth in these developing countries.
Information on UPS services is fascinating, as are collaborative efforts of Papa John’s, Nike and Jockey. Large and small companies outsource to professionals whose primary function is niche management or marketing. “Smalls” can thus compete globally with “Bigs,” and nobody even knows.
He emphasizes that many jobs are not going “over there.” Rather, they are being eliminated by new technology. China, India and the Asian Tigers are not racing the U.S. and Europe to the bottom with low wage labor; they are racing us to the top with effort and ingenuity. Now even they are outsourcing to lower wage countries. If we don’t soon recognize and correct this they will win!
The U.S. still has many of the finest schools, but a majority of the relevant advanced degrees are being earned here by foreigners. Worse, technology now permits them to return home on completion to societies which they prefer. Immigration is no longer necessary. Further, some of their schools are improving such that they will soon be as good as ours. As a nation we are losing high-tech skills because of societal sloth. All of us are aware that our educational systems are bad. Learn here more about just how bad.
The man has a lot to say, and a lot of it is right, but he seems to ignore the politics of the situation. Sure it takes leadership, but the current environment has prevented handling social security, immigration, education, and more. He ends, as liberals always do, with a heaping portion of pious pabulum piled on a paper plate. We have to be nice, play fair, have dreams, eliminate fear, trust everyone, etc. Bah! Humbug.
Using the information provided, along with common sense, we have to get off our butts, discipline and educate our kids and encourage people to educate themselves in useful endeavors. For those incapable or uninterested in that life course we have to emphasize and provide training in manual jobs which cannot be outsourced, and control immigration so that the wages paid to those on the lower rungs are able to live well.
I well remember an old saw from my youth. There’s very little difference between people. But that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude; the big difference is whether it’s good or bad. We currently have a bad attitude about lots of things, married to an over-aching sense of superiority and entitlement. For the past century we have been unchallenged. No longer, and we are increasingly behind the curve.
While this is a dissertation on business and globalization he does include some of the societal impact—good and bad. He also omits a number, a few of which I mentioned above.
He does point up many factors which are cogent, and a few are endearing. A selection of these:
• By furthering education we move a larger portion of the population up a notch into a higher wage group, which leaves fewer in the bottom portion, thus raising wages there as well, but only if we control immigration! (A liberal who supports immigration control . . . wow!)
• Leadership positions in China are primarily filled by engineers. In America "leadership" is overwhelmed by lawyers. That is a problem!
• Economic stability in this flat world is not going to happen. Get used to it.
• Everyone wants economic growth, but no one wants to change.
And my favorite:
• In China today Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America Britney is Britney Spears—that is a serious problem!
And finally he reminds that Will Rogers once said: “Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
