The World is Flat covers a number of different topics, but the thrust of it is that technology is "leveling the playing field." He explores that in a number of themes, including the developed vs developing world, individuals vs large institutions, etc..Originally Posted by William F. Owen
In my mind he fails to account for large organizations being able manipulate and influence these things. A recent article just talked about how Google is going to be manipulating its search results for payment. There is a ton of information on the internet, but the average person gets it from just a few sources. The tech boom as a business model is also misunderstood, IMHO anyway, as a shift in power. In reality it is just like any other emerging technology or market. Entrepreneurs take all the risk and the successful ones are absorbed. This may take the form of a acquisition, but just as often it is establishment folks swooping in from consulting firms and elite business schools to remodel the firm to make it fit for public consumption in the form of an IPO, where it then has to play by the same rules. You could apply the same ideas to globalization as well.
And as far as an individual's power, we have never had less privacy than we do now, much of our vital personal information is available online whether voluntary or not - that to me is a vulnerability. China has done a good job of harnessing these things for its own gain without compromising its grip on the population. It faces a greater threat from backward ethnic separatists in the west than any rebel bloggers.
And what about the non-flat parts? There seem to be new places going "off the grid" every day. The effects of the recent economic meltdown have yet to be digested, but I'm going to bet it will be a less "flat" world. MORE provincialism not less.
Finally I have never been to Bangalore or Delhi. But I've been to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau. It's very easy to be wowed by how advanced these places are, but those places, which are the ones the average foreigner sees, are disproportionately advanced for their regions. Most Chinese and Indians live in grinding poverty with little of the benefits of modern society and I don't see any easy way to integrate them. If anything they will become more resentful and hostile of modern society. We've seen that play out with the Uighur bombings during the Olympics and the Mumbai attacks.
I could go on here. Friedman is revered by the McKinsey and Harvard Business Review set because he is preaching to the choir. But I think there are plenty of reasons to believe he is confusing the further collapse of the Westphalian order with some global enlightenment. Maybe you got a different message from the book.
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