Friday, June 17, 2005

Flattening the World

Reading the book “The world is flat” by Thomas L. Friedman, I find myself agreeing with his premises. The premise of the book is: Technology combined with globalization is flattening the world. He goes through various examples all positive rising standard of living for Indian in the subcontinent, rising standard of living for the Chinese and flattening of the hierarchies in society, such as in military and news media.
I agree with his observation of the world becoming flatter, however Friedman and other advocates of free trade forget in order to flatten something you must lower as well as raise some standards of living. Advocate only look at the positive of raising standards of living and ignore the lowering of standard of living for the winners of previous century.
Also they forget that winners tend to sit on their laurels and get lazy after awhile. This book touches on this topic by talking of the speed of change this time around. I would recommend that my student to read this book.

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