The World Is Flat: Friedman's Globalization 3.0 Explained

Introduction: Three Eras of Globalization

Thomas L. Friedman's early books on globalization, such as The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1998), focused on the second era of globalization, which the author dates from 1800 to 2000 — the period when "the Internet and e-commerce were just taking off." His more recent work, The World Is Flat, focuses on the evolution of the third era of globalization, which began in 2000 and is driven by the power of individuals to go global. This distinguishes it from the forces that activated the first two eras: the power of countries to go global and, subsequently, the power of companies (Friedman, 2007, p. 10).

Friedman experiences a kind of epiphany when an Indian engineer in Bangalore describes the "leveling" of the world to him. The development of outsourcing across various services — made possible by recent technological achievements beginning with the launch of the World Wide Web — enabled companies and individuals to collaborate and compete on a scale never seen before. As Friedman writes, "Because it is flattening and shrinking the world, Globalization 3.0 is going to be more and more driven not only by individuals but also by a much more diverse — non-Western, non-white — group of individuals" (Friedman, 2007, p. 11).

Computers and the Internet made almost anything possible by offering endless possibilities to those willing to apply their minds to invention and innovation. The fiber-optic cable, satellites, Wikipedia, Google, improved methods of file compression, the iPod, and the willingness of people worldwide to adopt new technologies and bring them to countries like China, India, and Russia accelerated the process of flattening to a pace that now seems irreversible.

The Flattening Forces Driving Globalization 3.0

Friedman identifies ten forces that contributed to — and continue to drive — the world's transformation, showing how politics, international relations, and technological advancement have intertwined to change the face of the world almost overnight. In his view, everything began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, which provided the incentive for breaking down physical borders and nudged globalization, then approaching the end of its second era, toward the introduction of new economic rules in countries that could offer cheap but capable workforces hungry for higher living standards.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of Netscape, and software that gave manufacturers the ability to operate machinery with a handful of workers instead of the thousands previously required are considered the three foundational forces that laid the groundwork for the flattening process. The fourth major flattening element is the availability of information at the stroke of a keyboard through search engines, and more importantly, the willingness of people to collaborate in the creation of vast databases like Wikipedia or public blogs.

To this list one might add the electronic formats that newspapers and magazines adopted to survive competition — making it possible to read The New York Times or The Times online, on the day of publication, from home, without a paid subscription. News now travels the world almost instantly, making competition in the business world fiercer than ever. One predictable effect of this intensified competition was the search for new ways to cut costs and find more efficient means of production — giving birth to outsourcing and offshoring.

Outsourcing, Offshoring, and the Future of Work

David Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor, captured the spirit of this shift in a memo to his editorial staff: "But change is natural; change is not new; change is important. The current debate about off-shoring is dangerously hot. But the debate about work going to India, China and Mexico is actually no different from the debate once held about submarine work leaving New London or shoe work leaving Massachusetts or textile work leaving North Carolina. Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently" (Friedman, 2005, p. 21).

Friedman uses these words from one of the world's most prestigious news organizations to support his view that globalization is legitimate and is embraced by influential business players who were among the first to recognize and profit from its advantages. At the same time, he draws attention to the other side of the coin — the negative effects of globalization. While people now work together across the globe thanks to modern communications technology, those tools are not always used for constructive purposes. Terrorists, too, have adopted these new means and have not hesitated to update their capabilities with everything computer science has to offer.

Friedman also raises questions about how parents should answer their children's or grandchildren's questions — both simple ones about the origin of products like cars or software, and harder ones about which fields of study will offer the best employment prospects. When a child asks whether software comes from India, Friedman drafts a possible answer: "No, not yet, honey. Every new product — from software to widgets — goes through a cycle that begins with basic research, then applied research, then incubation, then development, then testing, then manufacturing, then deployment, then support, then continuation engineering in order to add improvements. Each of these phases is specialized and unique, and neither India, nor China nor Russia has a critical mass of talent that can handle the whole product cycle for a big American multinational" (Friedman, 2005, pp. 29–30).

But for harder questions — such as what an average accountant trained at an average U.S. college should expect from a career in an industry being transformed by Indian accountants performing routine work at a fraction of the cost — Friedman can only point to the straightforward but difficult solution of professional reorientation. This is, of course, not the first time in history that people have had to adapt to economic change, and as the Reuters memo suggests, such adaptation is entirely natural and to be expected.

Conclusion: Interdependence and Economic Vulnerability

On the other hand, the very links that make economies in a flat world so deeply interdependent can also create the conditions for a collapse of enormous proportions when one of the world's strongest economies encounters serious difficulties. Whether or not one characterizes it as a full recession, the United States was experiencing significant economic difficulties at the time of writing, and the effects were being felt across the globe. The future would show whether the solutions devised by politicians and economists to address the crisis were correct — and whether the flat world's capacity for mass mobilization could help save the broader global economy.

References

Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Friedman, T. L. (2007). The world is flat. Picador.

Zineldin, M. (1998). Globalisation and economic integration among Arab countries. Paper presented at the Fourth Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, Oslo, August 13–16, 1998.