A Review of Thomas L. Friedman book, The World is Flat

By Kuthula Matshazi

In his book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman argues that the world is now flat. By that he means that those obstacles that created inequalities and prevented global networking are being eliminated and now the playing field for international competition is being levelled. The levelling of the field is now enabling people from all corners of the world to work together on an equal footing in real time. This flattening has been facilitated by the pervasive information and telecommunications technology. He lists ten issues that he identifies as forces that flattened the world. These include the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the launch of Netscape into the public domain in 1995, the creation of Work Flow Software, uploading, outsourcing, offshoring, supply chaining, insourcing, informing, and the introduction of digital and mobile technologies, which he termed steroids.
Reviewing Friedman’s book, it is important to first of all understand the type of economics that informs his worldview as he confesses at the beginning of his the book when he says, “I firmly believe in the lesson of classical economists” (Friedman, 20). His firm belief in classical economics has constrained his viewpoint beyond what he prefers to see and believe. Friedman is wrong to believe that the world is flat because the many obstacles that makes the world rough, bumpy and dangerous have not been eliminated. I will tackle some of his presumptuous truisms.
Friedman believes that “connecting all the knowledge centres of the planet together into a single global network” (Friedman, 8) would benefit both individuals and companies. He says politics and terrorism are hindrances that could get into the way of flattening the world. This statement serves to undermine his whole argument because politics has, in many instances trumped economics. Alternatively, politics has, at best cohabitated with economics. Likewise, terrorism has, over the years become part of everyday reality in the world that we live in. So therefore these two elements have, as Friedman acknowledges their influence, been part of factors that have frustrated the flattening of the world. They are part and parcel of globalization and it would be difficult, if not impossible to talk about globalization without taking them into consideration, especially for Friedman’s country, the United States, given the prominent role that country has played in the globalization process. Also, given the role the globalization process has assumed, it has encroached into other nations’ facets of life such as culture and economy causing untold suffering. These two elements – politics and terrorism - have made the world rough and bumpy as opposed to flat. In fact, the very economic globalisation that Friedman reveres is, to a great extent responsible for thwarting a flat world he mistakenly observes.
However, one can understand Friedman’s position because his assessment of the world is from a privileged position. He was born in the United States, whose corporations and individuals have benefited from the current economic globalisation process. Also, Friedman sees the world from his privileged professional position as well as his association with corporate executives whom he admires greatly and quotes extensively to justify his argument. Friedman justifies his arguments using the successes of these few privileged people to prove that they have made the world flat. True, within their small world, which is detached from the wider world, these executives have achieved spectacular economic benefits. However, Friedman goes on to suggest, quoting David Landes’ Wealth and Poverty of Nations book, that those who are poor are poor because of their culture that holds them back, dysfunctional institutions and their inability to embrace free trade among other factors. However, what free trade has delivered is uncertainty. These days, as Friedman points out, having a permanent job is no longer guaranteed. He says that people should continuously learn to adapt and be competitive to remain relevant to industry. But if we all keep up with the ever changing trends, the industries would surely reach their employment intake limits. Besides, Friedman already acknowledges that production processes are being outsourced to India, China and any other places that can perform these jobs best and at low prices.
Granted, the developed countries have built efficiencies, while the developing countries have not. It is not entirely about the regressive cultures practiced by the societies in the developing countries and the dysfunctional public institutions as Friedman suggests, but the inherent misalignment of the different cultures and aspirations of societies. While the Friedmanian kind of society is that of global flattening, the priorities and aspirations of other societies should not be seen as impediments to development, which is measured using current economic globalisation standards. The resultant pauperisation of other societies by the economic globalisation which was also facilitated by colonialism and is being sustained by imperialism should not be viewed as a failure by those societies to advance themselves. Rather that they are being forced to participate in an alien economic globalisation game as unequal partners.
Surely, refusing to partake in someone’s culture and activities is not cultural regression. On the contrary it is about assertiveness and having a choice to engage in the activities that one chooses. It is therefore ironic for Friedman to suggest, on the one hand that concepts like democracy and free markets are important and indispensable while on the other he suggests that people have no choice but to join economic globalisation if they want to live a life that would, according to him, be decent. To demonstrate Friedman’s tyrannical character, which is an antithesis of democracy, he unilaterally proclaims that:
“The Cold War had been a struggle between two economic systems – capitalism and communism – and with the fall of the wall, there was only one system left and everyone had to orient himself or herself to it one way or the another…if you were not a democracy or a democratizing society, if you continued to hold fast to highly regulated or centrally planned economics, you were seen as being on the wrong side of history”. (Friedman, 52).
Friedman makes these declarations as axiomatic. Indeed in the world that he lives in that could be true, but it was not the case in many areas beyond his world. To give him the benefit of doubt, if he were writing from a certain market that has a corresponding viewpoint then his explanations would be understandable. However, even though he could be writing for a narrow audience, the problem is that he is writing about issues that involve the whole of humanity and not only those people with a similar viewpoint or who generally understand his viewpoint. It therefore becomes important that if Friedman is discussing about globalization, which will have far reaching effects, then he should also take into consideration the condition of those people. Being more economically or militarily powerful than one society does not make that power any better.
Friedman’s ten forces that flattened the world are only acceptable to the extent that they have flattened the world for those powerful corporations and privileged individuals and not for the majority poor people. I must suggest here that these flatteners should not just be flatteners for the sake of flattening the world, but they should benefit human kind. Economic globalisation is not supposed to be an end in itself, rather a means through which people should uplift their standards of living. The question then arises as to which people in particular should benefit enormously for the majority of humanity. Friedman shows this point by even suggesting the positive effect of economic globalisation. For instance, one of the ten forces of flattening is Work Flow Software. While this software indeed improves work processes within and between companies, it bears little or no significance to the majority of the poor people of the world. The most they can do is marvel at from afar or even in some cases disbelieve its virtues. Many times such software is irrelevant in developing countries when food is the priority or it is too expensive to set up and administer. So it is better for Friedman to understand which worlds have been flattened and what effect each of his flattener has produced. That would mean getting out of his limited interaction with business people or those who are rich and privileged and seeing the world through the eyes of the majority poor.
Friedman says “What’s even worse for Mexico is that China is displacing some Mexican companies in Mexico” (Friedman, 404). If Mexico can be affected in this manner by China when it has already deregulated its economy, lowered its non tariff trade barriers and tried to improve its international competitiveness, then this demonstrates how difficult it would be for a country to participate successfully in economic globalisation. Being competitive is not only about “looking brutally honestly at your strengths and your weaknesses” (Friedman, 407). The above example of Mexico attests to my position. Despite its efforts to be a successful economic globalisation player, Mexico has been affected by economic globalization in a major way. Compared to Canada, which boarders the US, Mexico has not benefited as much. Illegal immigration to US is a huge problem and now Friedman reveals that in providing low wage sector, Mexico is being less competitive.
This suggests that Mexico can only be competitive if it further depresses the conditions which had initially made it a favourable destination for production processes. The flip side is for Mexico to heavily invest in skills development and high education, a process that does not happen overnight. Besides, already East Asian countries have a comparative advantage. If, for argument's sake, Mexico were to successfully build a competitive human resource base quickly, they would still be faced with the same China and other East Asian countries that have already a comparative advantage in high skilled labour and are important US allies in that region of the world to safeguard its strategic geopolitical interests.
Even if Mexico were in a position to compete with East Asian countries, it could, as Friedman said, have to face other factors such as politics, with which to contend that could get in the way of flattening the world.
A point to clarify my argument is Friedman’s assertion that part of Mexico’s problem is its location to the world’s largest market which speaks English and yet it has not established an English language crash course or scholarships to send its students to the US while China and India have done so and have many students enrolled in US universities. It is flawed logic to suggest that if a country sends its students to the US it would automatically succeed. As Friedman suggested, domestic politics and foreign interests may vary and influence economic relations. Besides, we cannot be sure whether those US students are resident in China and India or are US citizens. If we give him the benefit of doubt and say they are Indian and Chinese citizens, we might never know where they end up working or settled.
While Friedman’s arguments contain several flaws, it however brings into perspective many of the challenges of dealing with globalization. Importantly, it teaches us to take globalization from a broad view than just from the narrow view promoted by those who engineer and benefit from it. At the same time, it challenges us to think much deeper and confront its inherent contradictions so that we could find ways of making it work for the majority of people in the world.