the world is flat

Thomas Friedman: The world is flat

A brief history of the twenty-first century

The impacts of the technological revolution on the process of internationalization constitutes the principal object, said to be interesting of Friedman’s last work, The World is Flat. The world renowned reviewer at the New York Times supports in it the idea that flattening forces, essentially linked to the technical progress, started converging and working together since the year 2000 to create a new “planetary field of play”.

The writer, by the multiple examples he convenes, and the extracts of conversations he had with the world leaders, tries to make us feel the big exchange acceleration that he perceives in the beginning of this century; however without ever giving any demonstrations. His approximations and lack of methods have evident consequences on the conclusions he takes. his own approach looks to be lacking scrupulous. He talks, lightly, about the trips he took to understand the flatness of the earth and the encounters it led to. His principal task was to collect the feelings of the people interviewed on his walk around the world. I found it interesting that most of the people interviewed were CEOs and the explanation to this choice was never revealed. Friedman took their word and set it on stone without any conscience that he only chose the winners of the internationalization. He nonetheless asks all of them the same questions “when did you realize that the world was flat?” with this question he was making interlocutor not thing on his own and make his own ideas but he was making them say what was expected of them, it was a problematic imposition. His lack of objectivity is present in the introduction as well, where he tries to link the internationalization of the world to the discovery of the new world by Christophe Colomb. Friedman says that the world was of a “normal size” until the 1800 then it enters into a phase of a “smaller world” in the year 2000. I think that it is true the world have known some events that might seem to others as a step back like the great recession or the two world wars, but they obviously didn’t stop the technological revolution. Within the 1990 the world knew a new era of connectivity thanks to the web; since then the world went from being of a normal size to being “minuscule”. The world became flat again, without any commercial or political frontiers, under the globalization and the numeric revolution. Because the XXI century started under terrorism and violence we thought it was a new century of conflicts and confrontations; which was a mistake. Nowadays, the explosion of technologies enables every single one of us to connect with the partners we want for a unique adventure. However the winners of this world acceleration shifted; the era of the triumphant Occidental countries is heading to an end. The world’s gravity moved to the start-ups and the Asian entrepreneurs, with China and India leading the continent aggressively and hungry for success and power. This book awakened America, and three million copies were sold.  Reading the world is flat, reaffirmed the earlier thoughts that I had about the world and how small it is becoming. I am from a different continent and to me being able to converse and talk with my family and friends makes me think of the early days when people had to use letters to communicate. My father experienced that part of our history and to him the internet, the advancement of technologies is one handy tool to making the world accessible and easy to reach for anyone. Years ago the countries that held the monopole of the world were all obvious and known by all, and the companies that made these countries strong and powerful lived in a small closed up world that was inaccessible for others. With the emerging countries marginalized, back then, many thought that things were set on stone to never change; until Silicone Valley came into play. Now Google is available in more than a hundred languages which mean that these ways of communications are here to stay with their cultures and thoughts. One can stay in his own little village and be able to make transactions all around the world without ever worrying about being marginalized. A small winery can go from being local to expanding all around the globe in matter of weeks. Everybody has a chance now. Friedman has neglected, in my opinion these small businesses that are just as powerful and important in his book when he only conversed with CEO’s. I think that his adventure only went around the big corporations and stopped without envisaging the many different possible outcomes. Like I stated earlier, most people thought that this century would be tarnished by blood because of its beginning, however so far it showed us that there is more to that.

The major characteristic of the XXI century is the tight cohabitation of different systems of values issued in multiple cultures; in the world, within every country, inside every corporation and in every one of us. The modern technology and the high speed informational networks shrunk the planet. Now, the whole world can stand on one desk. One standard computer ordered in the United States was built in Ireland, with a processor manufactured in Costa Rica, a cache memory from Germany, a hard drive from the Philippines and a flat screen from Japan. The invoice was done by an accounting company in India and the costumer services are operated by a call center in Morocco. Thomas Friedman deducted from it in his book that at any moment any human being can connect to any other human being to work on a common project, independently of his place in the globe.