The World is Flat

During the last week I have been reading Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. While reading this book I could not help but agree with Friedman. The evidence he cites and the experiences that he relates jive with what I see and encounter in the world around me. Globalization is happening and it is happening now. However, while Friedman does an excellent job of explaining the forces that have created the twenty-first century and their effects on the global economy, I feel he left some of the more important questions unanswered.

We should ask: “Is a flat world really a better world?” When North America and Europe passed through the Industrial Revolution the thought was that this economic structure would be better. Certainly, the millions of people who flocked to the urban centers thought that their lives would improve. For the aggregate better or worse, those economic changes had their consequences. In reality not much changed. Now this question is largely academic. Globalization will happen; it has already started and stopping it would absolutely be the wrong decision. This leads to what I consider the most important question.

How can we, as players in this new economic structure, influence this radical change such that it is for the better? When the paradigm is shifting is when the paradigm can be influenced. Too long have we lived in a world where 20 percent of the population own 80 percent of the wealth. We may have the chance to change that. It is not good enough to simply include people from more countries into that proverbial ‘20 percent’. It will truly be sad that if at end of this transition we can only say, “The more things change the more they really stay the same.”