An America to Become: A Book Review

By Greg Stewart

I really tried to get through, [this school assignment of], the long winded diatribe of Thomas L. Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat,” when I found out there was another hundred pages to read between me and my Final Destination to a conclusion and the course syllabus; I surrendered. I did scan major portions of it, however.

Lucky me, I had already prewritten an initial diatribe on the fluff and banter regard Thomas Friedman's work. I written that the grandiose obfuscation on Friedman’s book, although compelling, thoughtful, and a clarion call to urgency, his thesis is repetitive and was too long for public consumption. For the most part, he is correct, based on the argument he presented, on the assessment of this country’s, the US’s, competitive future lies. Friedman’s dissertation surrounding the issues of technology and ideology has substantial weight in regards to geopolitics, socioeconomics, and education, in that, he presupposes American competitiveness, innovation, and ingenuity is on the decline.

One hopes that, this claxon call for America’s future is, at the least, examined, and in part enacted. With that said, his socialist leanings may cloud his efforts and his warning to the American consciousness and its willingness to accept it as nothing more than nannyism run amok

The good intentions of Friedman’s proclamation of the “civil evolution” next step have been muted to the halls of academia and political scientists—in general. By “civil evolution,” I mean that the next great cultural redefining moments, see the examples of Platonic Dialogues, the Christianity Movement, the Enlightenment Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement—to name a few, in which, upheaval of cultural norms have usurped for the overall betterment of humanity.

Some may see Friedman’s warning as purely dialectal science fiction, nonetheless, I felt, admittedly liberal of me I know, that his compunction to undercut American institutions is overstated but sobering. For instance, he says the “dirty little secret” according to the National Science Foundation, “half of America’s scientists and engineers .....  is steadily rising” (p 327).

He also quotes Shirley Ann Jackson[1], “For the first time in more than a century, the United States could well find itself falling behind other countries in the capacity for the scientific discovery, innovation, and economic development” (p326).

In essence, without further quoting, he is implying that educational institutions are failing to provide scientists and engineers to fill the vacuum of creative American ingenuity. We are training more foreign nationals than American native born citizenry (332). Thus, Friedman’s argument focuses on what he calls “The Middlers,” the middle class citizenry ability to adopt and adapt to the new “flat world.”

He says, “My simple answer is this: There will be plenty of jobs out there, with the knowledge, skills, ideas, and self-motivation to seize them” (p 276).

Stop and think about that, he is saying, Friedman, that the outsourcing and in-sourcing of jobs will be based one’s ability to adapt, and will be plentiful—as long as you are willing to change with the new world technologies. Essentially, using the “flat worlds” tools afforded so one can access the job market.

He further proclaims, that the responsibility is not only of the individual, but of the government and employers—Freidman parlays that, “If there is a new social contract implicit between employers and employees today, it should be this: ‘You give me your labor, I will guarantee that as long as work here, I will give you every opportunity—through either career advancement or training to become more employable, more versatile” (p 395).

This may result in more versatile employee, but the employee generally fails to see the innovation of cross training. It seems to most employees that, “the multinationals,” a pejorative, are nothing more than blood sucking life sappers who wish to do nothing more than to squeeze every once of low wages from their employees in order to prop up the self-indulgent overpaid CEOs—see Qwest former executive Joe Nacchio as an example.

Moreover, low wages, commissions, or contracts are undercutting the monies that can be made in the market place. This can be seen in Friedman’s anecdotes, in which he relays this through his friends, when says that their services have been “commoditized” essentially reducing their careers to being “vanilla” or automated to the new world technology. The “flat world” technology as Friedman’s Ken Greer relays, “Our clients,” meaning the boss of a contract based businesses, “all said the same thing, ‘Your firm was really qualified. John was very qualified, John was cheaper.’ We used to feel bad losing to another firm, but now we are losing to another person” [emphasis added].

In other words, “the flattening of the world” will be individualized competition on a personal level, even for multinational companies, since the new technological era make small firms big, and big firms small through outsourcing and reduction of labor. Nonetheless, the technology versus ideology debate, meaning the free market will be grooming how one views through the world. A world that will eventually result in a borderless political axis and those who feel trapped in the world of borders, classism, and elitism will be crushed by the flattening.

Take these words of one prominent Colorado citizen view of the flat world through the eyes of immigration, he says (basically),

“The single most important issue of today is the illegal immigration issue in Colorado today…it touches everything from health to education…to jobs in available in America…” Peter Boyles, KHOW radio, Denver)

In relaying the fears of his listeners, in how the outsourcing and the in-sourcing of job loss of American citizens to the illegal immigrants warrants protection from them. His view is that that they are stealing low end intensive jobs, while the end service jobs are being outsourced to foreign nationals because of the “multinationals,” don’t care about nations, government, and people. He believes that they are only concerned with profit. His beliefs that the jobs that are being in-sourced to the illegal immigrants have a detrimental affect on national security and prosperity. In effect, leveling of the playing is creating a double standard, a sanctuary to illegality; undercutting the rule of law.

Optimistically, one hopes that the talk show host from Denver is rooted in the perspective of rule of law, and not subject to any other nefarious aspects attributed to those who are often accused of being xenophobic. Meaning his “fear” laden talk, which seems to smack of protectionist ideals and his proclamation that he doesn’t want a “leveling of the playing field,” is a contributing factor to his denial that the world is already flat.

Thomas Friedman has written a bible in geopolitics, economics, and introspection. He uses anecdotes, interviews, and personal testimonials—and to a degree draws on the energy and experience of his own life. Friedman has laid his case out, or most of it, that technology will be the driving force in the twenty-first century. The overlaying argument of technology versus ideology is well taken. His perspective of how it can be accomplish seems too socialistic, may be even being a nannyist to me. For instance, when he says that “The social contract that progressives should try to enforce between government and companies and workers … ‘We cannot guarantee you any lifetime employment. But we can guarantee you that we will concentrate on giving you the tools to make yourself more lifetime employable—more able to acquire the knowledge or the experience need to bed a good adapter, synthesizer, collaborator etc.’” It appears to me that he is advocating more government control, progressives, or liberals by redefinition, often do. Admittedly, Friedman ideals are appealing, but the battle of universal healthcare issue, which he tries to address for instance, is entrenched and may require more time than a “flat world” will allow. It is the details that gets muddy, often it is the “corporate interests” not the “people interests” that are reflected. See the K Street scandal as an example. At this time, such futility cannot be afforded.

Friedman’s book is the claxon call to the US government, business, and citizenry. This is good. We need alarm bell ringers. However, we need them to be laser clear, succinct, and brief. His continual use of anecdotal stories seemed to be self-serving. The stories of him returning home, visiting his daughter at Yale, talking with his wife, and discussing old college chums may have been fascinating to him, but arduous to the reader. The testimonials and his statistics along with public forum stories should have been enough. His repetitive examples were at times exhausting, and seemed to insult the intelligence of his audience.

Nevertheless, the drum beating of examples vividly adjoin the imagery of the state, of the virtual world, consuming expectations of the work force and employers of the futures. Friedman advocating the re-education and more educated work force in order to remain more competitive in the technological world, to illustrate the information age, the Internet Age, which has infiltrated the free market place has insidiously subverted the foundation of a competitive US, but also as a way to show the accessibility of the “flat world.” It is unfortunate that, in observing the media, press, radio, and television along with the Internet, the US seems to be self-destructing, and lost in self-flagellation of a persecution complex.

In part, this is due to the “arrogance” and “complacency,” according to Friedman and in regards to the state of education, “the gap” is growing in disparity. Every year US native grown scientist and electrical engineers is growing less and less. Right now, the US is in a major need of a wake up call. Like the Civil Rights movement provided, the US needs a shock of reality. At that time, the flattening of the world, the US was heading toward an apex of major political correction. The advent of 9/11 closed it minds to the “glocation,” a term used by Friedman, as a way to describe a global view of itself and its culture, sent the US returning to The Cave. He says, “In my own travels, two aspects of culture have me struck me particularly relevant in the flat world. One is how outward your culture is: To what degree is it open to foreign influences and ideas? How well does it “glocalize”? The other, more intangible, is how inward your culture is” (p 411). The US needs to be forward looking as it was in the 1960’s, it cannot afford 60 years of denial, protectionist economics, and misogynistic ego massage. If that were to happen, the US would be relegated to second class nation.

In closing, I will leave you with two quotes one that declared the individual annoucement to "the flat world" as necessary to take hold for a just world in the "flat world" to come, and the other forty-one years later to express the words in action:

“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends… And so even though we face the difficulties if today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream… I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are equal.” … I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and sons of former slave owners will be to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering wit the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice…. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but he content of their character….I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification’—one day right there in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little boys and white girls as sisters and brothers…. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together….” (Martin Luther King 1963 in Washington D.C.)[2]

“Openness is critical… because you start tending to respect people for their talent and abilities. When you are chatting with another developer in another part of the world, you don’t know what his or her color is. Your are dealing with people on the basis of talent—not race or ethnicity—and that changes, subtly, over time your whole view of human beings, if you are in this talent-based and performance-based world rather than background world…” (Jerry Rao Mphasis CEO, The World is Flat p. 411-412

When one see the words of Rao, it provides me hope that the words of King are closer to fruition than not. The Internet Age and the flatness of the world have brought this closer. No one noticed at the time, but King’s speech signaled the ending of what Friedman refers to Globalization as 2.0, when companies were “multinational,” this was certainly true, but King’s “grass root movement” showed the power of the individual in abstract form to the world. In Friedman’s book, he credits President Kennedy’s vision for the last time, when the US was looking forward and willing to step over the precipice, as the period of great creativity and innovation.

This is different however, with the culmination of dot-com crash, and the crashing of the planes into the World Trade Center, the War on Terror, and nation building in Iraq, has Friedman’s book as being panic stricken, in that, he feels that America, its identity being lost, and Americans is failing tests of opportunity. I must agree.

The rhetoric of the political extremes has locked the United States culture into a corrosive polarization, in which, political acrimony is needed to push forward to the economic stability of America. See the recent interview of former Republican Senator Danforth with Tim Russert of Meet the Press (link here) regarding faith and politics. Friedman states regarding leadership, “The job of the politician in America, whether at the local, state, or national, should be good part, to help educate and explain to people what world they are living in and what they need to do if they want to thrive within (p 365).” Fair enough, I would add to this vision that in order to withstand tumultuous waters of the extremes, it will take the pragmatists to curry the future of America and the planet in years to come.

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[1] Shirley Anne Jackson was the 2004 President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the President of Rensselar Polytechnic Institute.

[2]“I Have Dream” speech can be found in its entirety at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm.