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Tags: The World is Flat, Mark Penn, audiobook, globalization, free download
August 1, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Well, I’m visiting your blog for the first time. I have been interested in Globalization and read stuff on it. I disagreed with Friedman about his theroy on globalization as we see it today, because he doesnt take into consideration the majority of the population, esp in the third world countries, where the beneifts of globalization have passed them buy.
Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for Economics and was the Chief Economist at World Bank) said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization. So, obviously, all India is not going to migrate into middle class, if anything the inequality is far, far worse now, after the advent of globalization.
Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in apalling conditions, to churn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours etc – so who is actually benefiting from this sort of globalization? Corporates ofcourse, and the few privileged people who have been able to get educated in engineering and technology! Not the vast majority of population.
I would recommend a small, but interesting book, by Aronica and Ramdoo, “The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller.” It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman’s book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn’t a single table or data footnote in Friedman’s entire book.
“Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution,” says Aronica.
You may want to see http://www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch http://www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman’s “The World is Flat”.
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! http://www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
http://www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html