The World Is Flat

By Thomas L. Friedman

I got this audiobook from my father-in-law (who also gave me There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say).  Though it weighed in at 15 CDs (fifteen!), I’m glad it was unabridged.  I hope I never have to listen to an abridged book.

Since the subtitle of this book is A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, it’s pretty clear what this book will be about.  I would change that subtitle to A Brief History of Technology in the Twenty-First Century.  That’s what it’s about: the latest technology.  More specifically, it’s about how the latest technology is making the world flat.

In this book, Friedman argues that the latest technology, such as PCs, the Internet, open-source software and outsourcing, are making the world flat.  That is, they are allowing disparate and disadvantaged areas of the world to compete in the global market on a level that was recently only available to largely developed nations.  For example, engineers in India can do work that in the last ten years was only available to workers in North America or Europe (but mostly North America).  So, technology is making the world flat—allowing everyone, no matter where they are, to participate in the global supply chain, and therefore earn a better standard of living.  Boy, that’s a mouthful.  Let me try to explain (but it might be easier to just read the book).

As the latest technologies become widespread, areas of the world that used to be disadvantaged can start to participate in the global supply chain.  What is the “global supply chain”?  It’s the route a product takes from being raw materials to become something that you actually use or purchase in a store.  For example, a radio has screws, integrated circuits (which themselves started out as just plain old metal and plastic), buttons and displays.  They can all come from different places (India, China, Mexico).  Eventually, they’re all assembled, packaged and shipped off somewhere (like a distribution center).  Then they’re shipped off to a store where you buy it or they’re shipped directly to you if you buy it via the Internet.  That, more or less, is the global supply chain.  Participating in it makes nations and people wealthy.

Friedman gives the history of several of today’s technology cornerstones, such as the Apache web server and Linux, and discusses how they’re changing the state of impoverished nations.  Friedman calls good technologies “flatteners” and argues the more flatteners people have access to, the better off everyone will be.

I don’t want to restate the whole book here, but suffice it to say, flattening is good.  Even outsourcing, which freaked out a lot of people—including me—not too long ago.  He argues how and why it is good, even for people in highly developed nations, where many people fear jobs are being stolen from.  He talks at great length about China, India and Thailand.  He even discusses why Mexico is doing so poorly when it and China were in exactly the same circumstances about 20 years ago.  China turned their country around and is now a powerhouse in the global supply chain.  Mexico missed it—totally—and it and its people are paying for it.

Friedman also demonstrates how terrorism (specifically, Islamic terrorism) is flattening the world in another way, by trying to impoverish everyone.  I think the best example of this was stated in one section of the book.  A boy and his family just came back from a family reunion.  Half the family was in India, the other half in Pakistan.  The boy asked his father why the Indian half of the family seemed to be so much better off.  His father replied saying, “In India, when a boy looks up and sees a mansion on a hill, he says to himself, ‘Someday, I will be that man.’  In Pakistan, when a boy looks up and sees a mansion on a hill, he says, ‘Someday, I will kill that man.’”

The problem with most Islamic states is that they limit people’s freedom and access to technology (among human rights).  While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Islam, at least philosophically compared to other world religions, their approach to governing by holding people down just makes their people angry.  That Pakistani boy wants to kill that wealthy man because he knows there is no possible roadmap for him to reach that same level of wealth.  He was born poor, he’ll live poor, he’ll die poor… that’s it, end of story.  By keeping technology out of the hands of their people, Middle Eastern countries are keeping themselves and their people out of the global supply chain.  They supply oil, and that’s it.  If they were benevolent with technology, they could still supply oil, but also technology that would empower more of their people.

Friedman also shows how most Middle Eastern residents who somehow are educated at Western universities, end up leaving the Middle East for Western countries.  After they see what is possible outside the Middle Eastern states, they just leave.  This is unfortunate, because Islamic scholars used to be the brightest in the world.  They invented algebra and algorithms (the basis for software engineering).  Today, they just kick the sand and curse the West.  Anyway, Friedman explains why.

I agreed with most of this book, and was enlightened by all of it.  But I don’t agree with everything Friedman says.  For example, he paints a glowing picture of outsourcing.  He talks about how great it is and how it can only make western companies more profitable.  But he ignores many of the real-world cases where outsourcing to India has been a disaster.  Indian engineers are incredible job-hoppers, so trying to build a technology team there is next to impossible.  Once you have a team trained, they leave and go somewhere else and you have to start with a new set of people again, who may leave halfway through the training period to work somewhere else.  And he ignores the fact that many western consumers hate talking to people in Indian call centers because they can barely understand them with their strong accents.

Also, this book suffers from its age.  I don’t know the original publication date, but it must’ve been around 2003, and things have changed since then.  So some of the material is a bit dated.  But, all in all, it’s a great read (or listen).  Also Friedman came out with an updated and expanded version of the book in 2006, which I’m sure is better.  I highly recommend this book and am tempted to read another work by Friedman he talks about in this book, an earlier book called The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization.  I’m sure it’s a yummy read too.

External links

• Friedman's page on The World Is Flat.
• The World Is Flat on Wikipedia