Overview
Thomas Friedman ends The World is Flat with a discussion on imagination. He says that one can either use their imagination to dream or use their imagination to relive memories. For success, in a flat world he says one needs to live in a world of dreams not memories. The World is Flat discusses the effect globalization has had in flattening the world. By the flattening the world, Friedman means the leveling the playing field in the world of business and the removal of boundaries that create divisions and separated economies. The flat world is a unified world with one economy.
He divides globalization into three succinct stages. The first stage, from 1492 to 1800, was led by countries and utilized brawn and literal energy. The second stage, from 1800 to 2000, was led by multinational companies and their use of physical hardware. The third stage, from 2000 to the present, has been led by individuals who are using personal computers and fiber optic cable. The book focuses on this latest globalization and the forces that brought it about. Friedman believes there are ten flatteners that brought about this change. These are:
#1 - Fall of the Berlin Wall
On 11/9/89, the Berlin Wall fell. This was a shift from a world with two economic systems: capitalism and communism to a world with just capitalism. This created the first true world economy. Around this time the personal computer came into existence. This allowed for individuals to amass large quantities of information.
#2 - Day Netscape Went Public
Netscape was the first widely popular commercial web browser. This enabled people to share the large quantities of data they had been amassing on their computers. Netscape emerged with dominance of Windows 95 which was a standard to share across the internet with.
#3- Rise and Integration of Work Flow Software
Work flow software is protocols such as TCIP, STMP, XML, and SOAP. Work flow software allowed for computers to do more than just email and web pages over internet. It allowed for the computers to communicate not just within networks but between. These standards allowed for focus on value added software instead of just the backbone.
#4- Uploading
Uploading is the act of cutting out the middle man. Uploading is things such as blogging and Wikipedia as an example. Uploading is the ability to collaborate on a community level to get a better product quicker.
#5- Outsourcing
Outsourcing began as companies began to see that India and China could successfully make products for themselves and realized they could do so for us. The dot-com bubble allowed for the world to meet India through a demand to make Y2K software updates. The dot-com bubble burst required us to stay in India out of necessity for being cost competitive.
#6- Offshoring
Offshoring is the moving whole factories and supply chains offshore rather than just individual functions of a company. This was largely driven by China entering the WTO in 2001 and ensuring foreigners that it was safe to invest in.
#7- Supply-Chaining
Supply-chaining is the integration of the horizontal supply chain. It has been achieved by the creation of standards across corporations. In a world where innovations become commodities faster, the majority of business is in delivering commodities. Walmart pioneered the world of supply-chaining. They came to rule this world through being the hardest bargainer and quickest adapter.
# 8- Insourcing
Insourcing is having other companies manage ones whole supply chain. UPS is king in this world. They have the ability to do everything forma company to deliver, repair and manage one’s product. One does not even have to touch a product after designing it.
#9- Informing
Informing is the use of things like search engines to create a personal supply chain of information.
#10- Steroids
These are other things that exacerbate the other flatteners.
After discussing the ten flatteners affecting the world and driving Globalization 3.0, Friedman spends the rest of the book discussing how countries both developed and developing, companies, and individuals will be affected by a flat world and what they can do to thrive in such a world. It becomes sort of a diet book, it tells what the world diet is now and the recipes you need to succeed.
The Relevance
The World is Flat is a very relevant read not only for our trip to China and India but our program and all our lives. The world has changed a lot since when our parents entered the workforce. The World is Flat was very eye-opening for me. It made me more aware of the large amount of competition all of us face today in a world where globalization has leveled the playing field.
The whole book is devoted to directly or indirectly discussing the emerging economies of China and India. I thought one of the most interesting things that Friedman said concerning China and India was that most people believe China and India are in race with the rest of the world to the bottom when in fact they are in race with the rest of the world to the top. We think they want to be us but in reality they want to beat us.
While a multitude of similarities can be drawn between China and India. I think the part that was most revealing discussing the difference between China and India was the discussion about the differences in skyline. Friedman discusses how all the Chinese skylines have become towering skylines and India’s skylines still remain really flat for the most part. He explains that this is due to the lack of reliability of power in India. He extends it further to be a metaphor for the state of the two countries currently. This physical manifestation of the differences is really just the beginning of differences between these two countries.
Praises
I think the thing that was most well done about this book was the style in which it is written. It is written as a personal narrative and was very easy to follow. I think this an excellent approach to analyzing such a complex and emotionally charged subject. It also adds a human element to a subject that often seems to be about removing the human from it. This is further enhanced by the stories about individuals that serve to reinforce the author’s points.
Another praise that I can give is that Friedman seems to have developed hypothesis from observation. He discusses what his emotions were going into and our predispositions towards thinking about it. This adds validity to his method of research and helps us to get a more complete picture.
The book overall is very well done and a worthwhile read. It opened my eyes to a topic I had only known about marginally previously. It especially pertinent to read if one is about to enter the workforce or one is an industry that has been largely affected by globalization. It is well written and well researched. It will change your view of the world.
Criticisms
I feel that Friedman is a little over obsessed with the importance of the subject he has researched and often exaggerates the importance of things he is describing. For example, I feel that he way overestimates the importance to Y2K. He goes to the point of saying it should be considered the second most important day in India after Independence Day. I feel the statements such as this that he makes are a little outlandish.
Another concern I had throughout the book was that Friedman was obsessed with technology to the point of disillusionment. However, he owns up to the level of technological optimism that he has. He is actually very good at acknowledging his critics and further elaborating on those points. Something he doesn’t address is the fact to which he is a social Darwinist. He has a firm belief in survival of the fittest. I felt that this might be another thing detracting from the book.
There were some more technical things in Friedman’s argument that I don’t think are necessarily valid. Since I have no training or knowledge in these fields though, I might just as well be wrong. For example, Friedman argues in his book that globalization will not affect mean wage in the United States. While this might very well be true, I felt that he should have delved into a discussion on the fact that it might affect median wage. By this I mean even if the United States maintains the same mean wage, the income gap between the rich and poor might widen. This would actually drive down the median wage. I would have preferred more discussion on this subject.
I think that one of the biggest things that Friedman overlooks is the environmental implications caused by globalization. He glosses over them by discussing the implications for spreading disease and how oil prevents economies from developing. He fails to go into the fact that producing products in distant locations like China and India is dependent upon the availability of cheap fossil fuels. This system causes the creation of large amounts of pollution and requires lots of spending on defense.
The relocation of factories overseas also enables companies to produce more pollution by locating to areas with less environmental regulation. Thus while it seems that the United States has curbed it’s pollution it has in fact it has merely outsourced it along with its factories. I felt that this was the area that could have most been developed further in the book.
Lastly, I do not like how Friedman chose to end the book on a negative note about how a flat world drives the forces of evil. He delves into the ways in which it reinforces extreme viewpoints and facilitates terrorism. While I thought this exploration of the flipside of globalization was crucial to the book, I just felt it should not have been one of the last points he left readers with.
My Takeaway and Closing Thoughts
A large theme in the book is how the creation of standards is good. They allow for the more talented and the more resourceful to do value added work instead of tedious work. He believes that this is one of the reasons outsourcing is good for America. It is a chance for us to just focus on value added work. One of his main points regarding standards was that they increase competition and this has implications. Globalization is a type of standardization. I thought one of his best points was his response to how we should adapt to globalization and increasing competition. He felt that we need to move from building a strong state to building strong individuals. I think that this was one of the strongest takeaways for me. Since the world is flat, we all need to try that much harder to be tall and stand out.
