The essay is a summary of a video by Thomas Friedman titled ‘The world is flat’. It is important to note from the onset that the video entails the contents of Thomas Friedman’ bestselling book titled “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century” a publication of 2005. In the video, Friedman talks about his perception of globalization. It is believed by many that the concept of globalization has turned the world into a global village characterized by the free movement of capital, goods, services, and human resources. The author contrasts globalization 3.0 from 1.0 and 2.0. The former is where the governments of the respective countries were the protagonist pushing for interconnectedness among countries. The later is where multinational companies actively engaged in expanding their operations to other countries.
According to the author, the concept of globalization was heightened by the efforts of governments breaking the walls which blocked free movement of cash, human capital, goods, and services. This coupled with improvements in technology has led to a high level of interconnectedness in the world. From the video, Friedman had a total of 10 factors she believed contributed to globalization 3.0. These factors include the following; the collapse of the Berlin wall which he equates to government efforts to pass laws that encourage globalization, other factors include Netscape, workflow software, uploading, outsourcing, offshore, supply chaining, informing, and the steroids.
According to the author, all these factors including tremendous improvement in technology have enabled sharing of knowledge as well as work; irrespective of time, distance, geographical locations as well as differences in language. This allowed the majority of citizens to act to contribute to the global economy. From the video, I agree with the author’s assertion that globalization has indeed gone through several steps. However, he fails to closely link them and to let the readers know that the three steps are an integral part of enhancing future globalization. For instance, with improvement in technology which allows sharing of information instantly, failure of governments to develop an enabling environment where there will be free movement of human capital, cash, goods, and services will jeopardize globalization.
Although the world is not yet very flat as asserted, globalization has indeed helped individuals who could not engage in any meaningful businesses to contribute enormously to the global economy. A typical example outside the book is doing business online. Most of these businesses do not call for huge capital investment. Individuals can engage in the online business if they have a computer and reliable internet connection.
One negative thing the author asserts concerning globalization is competition. Friedman states that American citizens will have to up their game to remain competitive and a force to reckon in the world of competitive business. From the video, the best solution to the problem will be to continuously improve their skills and knowledge; this will make them employable even in the wake of a fierce and competitive business world.
From the video, it is evident that globalization has been presented to be good and without flaws. The author failed to acknowledge that there are some negative consequences associated with globalization. For instance, it is asserted that the world has turned out to be peaceful. However, free movement of people, cash, goods, and services has threatened the national security of several countries. Those who have not read the book should take time to watch the video since it gives more insight into modern globalization.