The World Is Flat

Dissecting “The World Is Flat”, Thomas L. Friedman

“I was in Bangalore, India, the Silicon Valley of India, when I realized that the world was flat.” – Thomas L. Friedman, “The World Is Flat”

After reading “The World Is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman, I understood the significance of globalization during the twenty-first century. I learned the progression of globalization and the significant changes it has had on the economy and world as a whole. Friedman establishes his text based on the many unique journeys he has taken across the globe, which I have highlighted in the above quote. Upon the conclusion of his travels, he coined the thought that the world is “flat.” He is not referring to the literal meaning of flat, but rather the sense that competitive environments amongst different counties have been leveled or collaborative. In other words, Friedman is presenting readers with a metaphor that addresses the world as a fair playing field of equal opportunities for everyone. To validate his conclusion, Friedman frequently introduces illustrations about the countries he visited and their connections with globalization. Furthermore, Friedman proposes that there is a vast amount of social and global systems that heavily contributes to his idea of the world being flat such as the internet.
Friedman particular focuses on the topic of the internet in depth. It is clear that he believes the internet is highly responsible for broadening the communication between individuals from all around the world. Friedman mentions due to the easy accessibility of the internet, communication has greatly contributed to the “flattening of the world.” As a result, globalization has been impacted because the internet allows all forms of communication with virtually anyone within small amounts of time.
In addition to the internet, Friedman also specifically discusses ten different aspects that have played a key role in highlighting why the world is flat. The ten factors Friedman sequentially mentioned are:
1.
2. Collapse of Berlin Wall, symbolized the end of the Cold War and allowed people to join the economic mainstream from both sides of the wall.
3. Netscape, served as a primary communication source that made the internet even more accessible to people.
4. Work Flow Software, enabled machines to communicate with other machines without the involvement of humans.
5. Uploading, allowed people to share documents and projects online through blogs, open source software, and more.
6. Outsourcing, permitted companies to divide service and manufacturing tasks into smaller components.
7. Offshoring, similar to outsourcing but strictly for manufacturing.
8. Supply-Chaining, creates a mode for companies to streamline items using technology.
9. Insourcing, providing employees of a company with the ability to perform services for other companies.
10. In-forming, having people research or collect information on various people and things by way of search engines like Google.
11.
12. “The Steroids”, creation of personal portable and digital devices like mobile phones and instant messaging.

Although these ten factors are individually different, they do not flatten the world on their own. According to the text, Friedman describes that the world began to flatten once these factors all merged together along with the help of the internet. In conclusion, “The World Is Flat” provides an in depth analysis of globalization in today’s world. Thomas Friedman descriptively explains how communication has dramatically shaped globalization from a business and competitive standpoint. As a result, Friedman presents a valid argument that the world is flat and the world we live in today is nothing less than a global environment. Therefore, we Americans will have to work harder, run faster, and become smarter to make sure that more of us are able to connect, compete, collaborate, and innovate on the flat-world platform to obtain all the benefits it has to offer!