The World Is Flat

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The World Is Flat Page 54

by Thomas L. Friedman


  All dreamers in action—not martyrs in waiting.

  Let me close with one last point. My own daughter went off to college in the fall of 2004, and my wife and I dropped her off on a warm September day. The sun was shining. Our daughter was full of excitement. But I can honestly say it was one of the saddest days of my life. And it wasn’t just the dad-and-mom-dropping-their-eldest-child-off-at-school thing. No, something else bothered me. It was the sense that I was dropping my daughter off into a world that was so much more dangerous than the one she had been born into. I felt like I could still promise my daughter her bedroom back, but I couldn’t promise her the world—not in the carefree way that I had explored it when I was her age. That really bothered me. Still does.

  The flattening of the world, as I have tried to demonstrate in this book, has presented us with new opportunities, new challenges, new partners but also, alas, new dangers, particularly as Americans. It is imperative that we find the right balance among all of these. It is imperative that we be the best global citizens that we can be—because in a flat world, if you don’t visit a bad neighborhood, it might visit you. And it is imperative that while we remain vigilant to the new threats, we do not let them paralyze us. Most of all, though, it is imperative that we nurture more people with the imaginations of Abraham George and Fadi Ghandour. The more people with the imagination of 11/9, the better p. 469 chance we have of staving off another 9/11. I refuse to settle for a world that gets smaller in the wrong sense, in the sense that there are fewer and fewer places an American can go without a second thought and fewer and fewer foreigners feeling comfortable about coming to America.

  To put it another way, the two greatest dangers we Americans face are an excess of protectionism—excessive fears of another 9/11 that prompt us to wall ourselves in, in search of personal security—and excessive fears of competing in a world of 11/9 that prompt us to wall ourselves off, in search of economic security. Both would be a disaster for us and for the world. Yes, economic competition in the flat world will be more equal and more intense. We Americans will have to work harder, run faster, and become smarter to make sure we get our share. But let us not underestimate our strengths or the innovation that could explode from the flat world when we really do connect all of the knowledge centers together. On such a flat earth, the most important attribute you can have is creative imagination—the ability to be the first on your block to figure out how all these enabling tools can be put together in new and exciting ways to create products, communities, opportunities, and profits. That has always been America’s strength, because America was, and for now still is, the world’s greatest dream machine.

  I cannot tell any other society or culture what to say to its own children, but I can tell you what I say to my own: The world is being flattened. I didn’t start it and you can’t stop it, except at a great cost to human development and your own future. But we can manage it, for better or for worse. If it is to be for better, not for worse, then you and your generation must not live in fear of either the terrorists or of tomorrow, of either al-Qaeda or of Infosys. You can flourish in this flat world, but it does take the right imagination and the right motivation. While your lives have been powerfully shaped by 9/11, the world needs you to be forever the generation of 11/9—the generation of strategic optimists, the generation with more dreams than memories, the generation that wakes up each morning and not only imagines that things can be better but also acts on that imagination every day.

  Acknowledgments

  p. 471 In 1999 I published a book on globalization called The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The phenomenon we call globalization was just taking off then, and The Lexus and the Olive Tree was one of the early attempts to put a frame around it. This book is not meant to replace The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but rather to build on it and push the arguments forward as the world has evolved.

  I am deeply grateful to the publisher of The New York Times and chairman of the New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., for granting me a leave of absence to be able to undertake this book, and to Gail Collins, editorial page editor of The New York Times, for supporting that leave and this whole project. It is a privilege to work for such a great newspaper. It was Arthur and Gail who pushed me to try my hand at documentaries for the Discovery Times Channel, which took me to India and stimulated this whole book. Thanks in that regard also go to Billy Campbell of the Discovery Channel for his enthusiastic backing of that Indian documentary, and to Ken Levis, Ann Derry, and Stephen Reverand for helping to bring it off. Without Discovery the show would not have happened.

  I never could have written this book, though, without some wonderful tutors from the worlds of technology, business, and politics. A few individuals must be singled out for particular thanks. I never would have broken the code of the flat world without the help of Nandan Nilekani, CEO of the Indian technology company Infosys, who was the first to point out to me how the playing field was being leveled. Vivek Paul, presp. 472ident of the Indian technology company Wipro, really took me inside the business of the flat world and deciphered it all for me—time and time again. Joel Cawley, the head of IBM’s strategic planning team, helped me connect so many of the dots between technology and business and politics on Planet Flat—connections I never would have made without him. Craig Mundie, chief technology officer of Microsoft, walked me through the technological evolutions that made the flat world possible and helped ensure that in writing about them I would not fall flat on my face. He was a tireless and demanding tutor. Paul Romer, the Stanford University economist who has done so much good work on the new economy, took the time to read the book in draft and brought both his humanity and his intellect to several chapters. Marc Andreessen, one of the cofounders of Netscape; Michael Dell of Dell Inc.; Sir John Rose, chairman of Rolls-Royce; and Bill Gates of Microsoft were very generous in commenting on certain sections. My inventor friend Dan Simpkins was enormously helpful in walking this novice through his complex universe. Michael Sandel’s always challenging questions stimulated me to write a whole chapter—“The Great Sorting Out.” And Yaron Ezrahi, for the fourth book in a row, let me bounce countless ideas off his razor-sharp mind. The same was true for David Rothkopf. None of them is responsible for any mistakes, only for insights. I am truly in their debt.

  So many other people shared with me their valuable time and commented on different parts of this book. I want to thank in particular Allen Adamson, Graham Allison, Alex and Jocelyn Attal, Jim Barksdale, Craig Barrett, Brian Behlendorf, Katie Belding, Jagdish Bhagwati, Sergey Brin, Brill Brody, Mitchell Caplan, Bill Carrico, John Chambers, Nayan Chanda, Alan Cohen, Maureen Conway, Lamees El-Hadidy, Rahm Emanuel, Mike Eskew, Judy Estrin, Diana Farrell, Joel Finkelstein, Carly Fiorina, Frank Fukuyama, Jeff Garten, Fadi Ghandour, Bill Greer, Jill Greer, Ken Greer, Promod Haque, Steve Holmes, Dan Honig, Scott Hyten, Shirley Ann Jackson, P. V. Kannan, Alan Kotz, Gary and Laura Lauder, Robert Lawrence, Jerry Lehrman, Rick Levin, Joshua Levine, Will Marshall, Walt Mossberg, Moisés Naím, David Neeleman, Larry Page, Jim Perkowski, Thomas Pickering, Jamie Popkin, Clyde Prestowitz, Glenn Prickett, Saritha Rai, Jerry Rao, Rajesh Rao, Amartya p. 473 Sen, Eric Schmidt, Terry Semel, H. Lee Scott Jr., Dinakar Singh, Larry Summers, Jeff Uhlin, Atul Vashistha, Philip Verleger Jr., William Wertz, Meg Whitman, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Bob Wright, Jerry Yang, and Ernesto Zedillo.

  And special thanks to my soul mates and constant intellectual companions Michael Mandelbaum and Stephen P. Cohen. Sharing ideas with them is one of the joys of my life. A special thanks too to John Doerr and Herbert Allen Jr., who each gave me the opportunity to road test this book on some of their very demanding and critical colleagues.

  As always, my wife, Ann, was my first editor, critic, and all-around supporter. Without her help and intellectual input this book never would have happened. I am so lucky to have her as my partner. And thanks too to my daughters Orly and Natalie for putting up with another year of Dad closeted away in his office for long hours, and to my d
ear mother, Margaret Friedman, for asking every day when my book would be done. Max and Eli Bucksbaum provided valuable encouragement in the early hours of the morning in Aspen. And my sisters Shelley and Jane have always been in my corner.

  I am blessed to have had the same literary agent, Esther Newberg, and publisher, Jonathan Galassi, for four books, and the same line editor, Paul Elie, for the last three. They are simply the best in the business. I am also blessed to have the most talented and loyal assistant, Maya Gorman.

  This book is dedicated to three very special people in my life: My mother- and father-in-law, Matt and Kay Bucksbaum, and my oldest childhood friend, Ron Soskin.

  Index

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  A

  p. 475 Abell, Pete, 130

  Abizaid, Gen. John, 39

  Abdul Kalam, A.P.J., 458

  Accenture Ltd., 34, 205

  accounting, 11-15, 80, 166, 184

  Adamson, Allen, 180

  adaptability, 239-43, 249

  Addison, Craig, 423

  Adobe Photoshop, 98, 188, 241

  Afghanistan, 55, 396, 401, 423, 434-35

  bin Laden in, 448, 450

  U.S. invasion of, 198, 386-87, 458

  AFL-CIO, 222

  Africa, 182, 315, 317, 376, 377, 389, 398, 412

  disease in, 377-81

  African-Americans, 254, 304-5, 403

  Agere, 417

  agriculture, 288-89

  environmental issues and, 297-99

  AIDS, see HIV-AIDS

  Airborne Express, 345-48

  Airbus Industries, 196

  Airman Flight School, 445

  Airspace, 167

  Akbar, M. J., 457

  al-Arabiya news channel, 406

  al-Jazeera television network, 400

  al-Qaeda, 8, 387, 392-95, 429-35, 437, 444-45, 447, 456, 457, 464, 469

  Al-Rashed, Abdel Rahman, 406

  al-Shehhi, Marwan, 395

  Al-Sudairi, Turki, 327

  al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 402

  al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 394, 396-97, 445, 448

  Alexa.com, 94

  Ali, Al Abdul Aziz, 444

  Allen, Jay, 132

  Allison, Graham, 437

  Alps, 416

  Amazon.com, 65, 68, 98, 102, 156, 242

  Amazon rain forests, 412

  ambition, 260-65

  American Airlines Flight 11, 449

  American Association for the Advancement of Science, 253

  American Express, 6, 173, 426

  American Indians, 108

  American Revolution, 460

  America Online (AOL), 26, 53, 56, 63, 78, 212, 278, 432

  Amin, Idi, 328

  AMR Research, 130

  anchored jobs, 238-39

  Andreessen, Marc, 58-62, 70, 83, 85, 86, 231-32

  Angola, 321

  Annunziata, Robert, 67

  anti-Americanism, 385-87

  antiglobalization movement, 384, 387

  Apache, 82-91, 96, 103

  Apple, 59, 235, 463

  Macintosh, 59, 61

  Arab Human Development Report, 398, 401

  Arabs, 9, 292, 316-17, 326-28, 392-406, 456, 461, 463-64, 466

  Arafat, Yasser, 467

  Aramex, 345-50, 463-64

  ARC Electronics, 66

  Ardolino, Bill, 43-44

  Argentina, 250, 322

  Arguello, Mike, 83, 261-62

  Army, U.S., 432

  Central Command, 430

  Arrow, 417

  p. 476 ASIMCO Technologies, 114, 116, 120, 122-24, 127

  Askey, 417

  Assaf, Anas, 467

  Associated Press, 218-19, 271

  Association of University Technology Managers, 245

  Asustek, 417

  Atef, Mohammed, 445

  AT&T, 58, 67, 68

  Bell Labs, 113, 254

  Athens Olympics, 250

  Atta, Mohammed, 292, 395, 396, 445, 449

  Attal, Alex, 282-83

  AU Optronics, 417

  Auras, 416

  Australia, 6, 16, 95, 138, 187, 320, 436

  Austria, 320, 442

  automobile industry, 29, 102

  in India, 234

  offshoring in, 122-25

  supply chain in, 146-47

  Avis, 425, 426

  Awadallah, Bassem, 462

  Azim, Shabana, 458

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  B

  Baader-Meinhof Gang, 396

  Bahrain, 316, 326, 328, 461, 463

  Baker, Dolly, 36-37

  Baker, James A., 111, 48-49

  Baker, Mitchell, 99

  Baldwin family, 97-98

  Baltimore, David, 303-4

  Bangladesh, 315

  BankBoston, 244

  bankruptcy, 319, 320

  Barksdale, Jim, 57-60, 63-64

  Barnes and Noble, 65

  Barrett, Craig, 182, 183, 268, 322

  basketball, 250-51, 303

  Beesley, Angela, 95

  Behlendorf, Brian, 84-89, 91-93

  Beijing Foreign Affairs Institute, 411

  Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, 408

  Belding, Brian, 372

  Belding, Katie, 372-73

  Belgium, 95, 403

  benefits, portable, 284-88

  Berlin Wall, fall of, 48-52, 55, 60, 73, 182, 192, 194, 313, 385, 441-42

  Berners-Lee, Tim, 56, 86

  Best Buy, 118

  Bhagwati, Jagdish, 232, 233

  Bible, the, 48

  Bigari, Steven, 40-41

  Billpoint, 78

  Bina, Eric, 86

  biodiversity, 297-98

  bin Laden, Osama, 55, 387, 395-97, 400-401, 403-405, 436, 438, 444-45, 447, 448

  Birdsall, Nancy, 461

  Bir Zeit University, 467

  BlackBerry, 213

  bloggers, 93

  Bloomberg news organization, 18

  Bluetooth, 159-60

  BMW, 354

  Boeing Aircraft, 75, 171, 194-97

  Bombardier, 263

  Boomer, L. Gary, 14

  Boston College, 271-72

  Boucher, Richard, 425

  Bradley, Bill, 197

  Brazil, 51, 78, 95, 117, 314, 320, 322, 414

  Brezhnev, Leonid, 278

  Brickwork, 31-32

  Brin, Sergey, 152, 154-55, 292

  Britain, 9, 95, 212, 231, 234, 320, 344, 404, 445

  automobile industry in, 171-72, 211-12, 354-56

  economic reform in, 314, 333

  India and, 50, 190, 325, 328

  Microsoft research center in, 266

  Muslims in, 399

  offshoring by, 417

  university enrollments in, 260

  Britannica.com, 94

  British Airways, 171, 425, 426

  Brody, Bill, 162, 272, 293

  Brooke, Jim, 160

  Brookings Institution, 293

  Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 254

  Buddhists, 463

  Buffett, Jimmy, 373

  Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 258

  Burkina Faso, 320

  Burns, Nick, 39

  Bush, George W., 42, 93, 198-99, 268, 283-84, 303, 387, 450-52

  business startup costs, 318-20

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  C

  C++, 111

  California, University of: Berkeley, 85, 87, 96

  Santa Cruz, 293

  California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 84, 303-4

  Calle, Luis de la, 313, 322

  Cambodia, 142, 320, 363-66

  p. 477 Cambridge Energy Research Associates, 413

  Cambridge University, 193, 234

  camera phones, 169-70, 179, 372-74

  Cameroon, 320

  Canada, 138, 143, 148, 187, 310, 320, 331, 410

  capital markets, 245-46

  CapitalOne, 290
-91

  Caplan, Mitchell H., 351, 352

  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 451

  Carnegie Mellon University, 96, 105

  Carrico, Bill, 304

  Carrier, 29

  Castaneda, Jorge, 332

  Caterpillar, 122, 124

  CAT scans, 15-16, 30, 239

  Cawley, Joel, 63, 76, 79, 81, 302, 353

  CBS News, 42, 93

  CCI, 416

  Celestica, 299

  cell phones, 160-61, 164-65, 167, 169-70, 213, 372-74

  Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 39, 292

  Chamber of Commerce, U.S., 311

  Chambers, John, 323

  Chanda, Nayan, 383, 405

  Chechnya, 406, 434-36

  Chen Shui-bian, 424

  Cherukuri, Satyam, 30, 29-30

  Chile, 316

  Chi Mei Optoelectronics, 417

  China, 29, 92, 95, 104, 141, 151, 181-83, 208, 252, 277, 309, 316, 322, 354, 385, 407, 430, 463

  basketball in, 250

  capital markets in, 245

  cell phones in, 373

  Central Bank of, 310

  communist revolution in, 436

  Cultural Revolution in, 267, 328

  culture of, 325, 327-28

  disease in, 378

  economic growth of, 249

  economic reforms in, 314

  education in, 264-68, 271-73, 305, 333, 335

  eighteenth-century, 11

  energy consumption in, 407-12

  engineers in, 113, 257, 258, 280

  enrollment in foreign graduate schools of students from, 260;

  environmental issues in, 300

  and fall of Berlin Wall, 51

  IBM and, 210-11

  immigrants from, 292

  intangibles of economic development in, 329, 331-36

  intellectual property piracy in, 218

  manufacturing in, 21, 74, 114-27, 235, 294, 309-13, 315, 356, 414, 416, 417, 421-22

  middle class in, 275-76, 387

  and open-sourcing, 102

  outsourcing to, 32-36, 113, 189, 247-49, 361

  political stability of, 247

  poverty in, 315

  rural population of, 221, 376, 377, 380, 413-14, 419, 420

  scientists in, 257, 269

  Taiwan and, 419, 422-25

  Trade policy and, 228-33, 235-36

  in Wal-Mart supply chain, 132, 138, 140, 177

  work ethic in, 263, 264

  zippies in, 191-94

 

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