History concepts and applications

¶ … World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Release 2.0 by Thomas L. Friedman. Specifically it will discuss the emerging flat world and the role the United States plays in that world. Author Thomas L. Friedman asserts the world is "flat" in this interesting text about emerging life, economics, and industry in the 21st century. He asserts the United States enjoys several compelling advantages in this emerging flat world, but there are some disadvantages, as well. Ultimately, the United States can enjoy many advantages from this flattening of the world, but to make the most of them, they must be willing to change many aspects of American society, including education, and for now, that does not seem to be occurring.

Early on, Friedman illustrates his concept with the analogy of Christopher Columbus believing the world was round, and then introducing his own concept, that because of technology like the Internet and other innovations, the world has "flattened" to become an "even playing field" for companies all over the world. This flat world is creating more opportunities for workers, especially high-tech workers, in countries like India, China, and beyond, but what is the economic and personal cost to workers in the United States?

Friedman discusses the emergence of call centers and major corporations employing thousands of foreign workers to do everything from answer phones to reading x-rays and prepare income taxes. He writes, "[S]o many people have access to low-cost tools of innovation, and so many people are able to tap into each other's markets, workforces, brainpower, and ideas to discover and invent new things -- and then quickly disseminate them around the globe -- well, then, whatever can be done will be done" (Friedman 1335). In this new world, many fear the United States will become disadvantaged and lose vital jobs and industry, but Friedman offers several advantages that many people may not have understood or thought of, which is one of the elements that makes this book so compelling.

One of Friedman's theories is that America has an advantage, even if jobs do move, because America is technologically advanced, it will develop new ideas, technologies, and innovations, and it will develop the jobs to go along with them. Freidman writes, "But with a market that big and complex, you can be sure that new knowledge jobs will open up at decent wages for anyone who keeps up his or her skills. So do not worry about our knowledge workers or the Chinese knowledge workers. They will both do fine with this bigger market" (Friedman 817). He also asserts that even though workers in other countries are willing to work for far lower wages, that will not always be the case, and slowly, wages will rise up to meet American wages, making our own workers competitive in the flat world market once again.

The author also asserts that as long as the flat world is growing (and it is), that human needs do not stay the same; they grow and alter dramatically with time. He uses the illustration of Starbucks Coffee and Google, both of which did not exist even two decades ago, and now are an integral part of a majority of the world's daily routine (Friedman 823). This means that human needs are "infinite," as the author puts it, and there will always be some kind of new innovations and technologies that will take the world by storm, and require new knowledge workers to manage, upgrade, and maintain them. Knowledge and idea-based workers, then, are the key to a successful flat world economy, and the key to maintaining American global dominance in these markets.

There are other advantages, too. Many companies who have outsourced many of their jobs to China, India, and other locations, have kept a core group of employees working at their sites in America. Because their costs are less and their products are more competitive, they are actually making a profit where they may have closed their doors before, and in addition, they have added employees to their workforce in the United States, rather than downsizing or closing their doors. Friedman cites Donaldson Company, Inc. (Friedman 839), and several others as examples of this phenomenon that is helping many companies stay in business longer than they could if they had to rely on high-priced American workers.

There are disadvantages to these theories, of course, and one major disadvantage is that the low-skilled workers in our country will suffer as jobs are moved offsite to other global locations. There may be a finite number of high-skilled workers, but there are far more low-skilled workers, and there will be more of them competing for more jobs, often at reduced rates of pay. The author writes, "Their wages are certain to be depressed. In order to maintain or improve their living standards, they will have to move vertically, not horizontally. They will have to upgrade their education and upgrade their knowledge skills so that they can occupy one of the new jobs sure to be created" (Friedman 819). Another disadvantage is that these new jobs, and new technologies that will continue to generate jobs, can take decades to be created, which means at least some workers will be displaced into lower paying jobs, or lose their employment altogether.

The author is quite clear about what we have to do to ensure our continued success in the global market, and much of that centers around improving education. He continues, "It must be accompanied by a focused domestic strategy aimed at upgrading the education of every American, so that he or she will be able to compete for the new jobs in a flat world" (Friedman 813). This is a key disadvantage to the U.S. right now, because education around the country is losing funding due to the sluggish economy, and the Federal Government has cut funding for many educational programs, as well. In addition, many studies have shown that America is losing ground to education in other countries, which means that in the future, if we do not beef up our education quickly and effectively, we could see real problems in the continuation of good, high paying idea-generating jobs in this country. For example, one educational statistics Web site reports that in 2003, the average American 15-year-old was outscored in reading, math, and science by a majority of foreign modernized countries, including China, Japan, and most of the European countries ("Average"). These trends continue through secondary education, and show that our education is not keeping up with many other countries, which will shortchange children in future generations, and the country's ability to maintain credibility and dominance in a flat world, as well. In addition, Friedman believes we must change the focus of education to create more right-brained creative thinking, and more liberal arts for well-rounded students who are curious and interested in a variety of subjects, which makes sense in the flat world.

Another disadvantage is how quickly information travels now, and how America has lost her domination of so many things in the world, from educational excellence to even sports advantages, like superiority in American sports like basketball and baseball. We have had no real serious competition in many areas, and Americans have become complacent, and used to being on top. Freidman writes, "That gave us a huge head of steam but also gradually bred a sense of entitlement and a culture of complacency. That is, a pronounced tendency in recent years to extol consumption over hard work and investment, immediate gratification over long-term thinking and sacrifice" (Friedman 1039). If we become too complacent, we may not survive, and that certainly is a disadvantage in the flat world, and this could allow other countries to gain a tremendous advantage over us.

There do seem to be other disadvantages to the flat world as well. One of the most compelling, that Friedman does address, but not completely, is the pension crisis in America today. He recommends a flexible program workers can take with them when they change jobs, (Friedman 1175-1177), but there are numerous long-term employees who are being downsized or kept at stagnant wages that are losing their pension plans of many years, and that is a tragic occurrence, especially for older workers on the verge of retiring. Much of this loss is coming from companies who are outsourcing to other countries where benefits like these are much cheaper or do not exist, and that is a severe disadvantage for many American workers.