Thomas Friedman's Argument Of The World Becoming Flat

Thomas Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is prominent for his argument of the world being “flat.” Essentially, Friedman believes that due to globalization, advances in technology are leading to new forms of communication between people located all over the world. This new and progressive technology is broadening connections like never before. With the advent of the Internet, people living in all different parts of the world are now globally connected and are able to interact in ways they never imagined were possible. One particular aspect that was changed because of globalization was business due to the fact that it became more interconnected as time went on. This well-known journalist elaborates on the successes as well as
This is meant figuratively when referring to globalization and the world becoming more connected. A drawback of this growth is free trade. While free trade can benefit a certain array of people, it can simultaneously be a disadvantage for others because of trade deficit. An example of job loss is exhibited, “You can see that after NAFTA was signed, America developed a chronic deficit with Mexico, which led to over 800,000 net jobs being lost”(Morrison). As a result of trade deficit, offshoring occurs which ultimately leads to the loss of domestic jobs. It is stated that, “The study found that offshoring tends to increase productivity and reduce costs, which can prompt firms to expand domestic hiring enough to offset the jobs lost to workers overseas”(Khimm). Another hindrance of the world being flat is the rise of competition. Consequently, this increase has impacting effects on society, causing more people to pursue fewer jobs. Throughout the last few years, I believe that the world became more flat because the more technology advanced; the more people all over the world become greatly interconnected. The author writes, “Advances in technology are one of the main reasons that globalization has escalated in the past decade”(Skwirk). Globalization continues to increase each day along with new discoveries and advancements being made with the help of those all around us. There will always be
“It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world”(Altermatt). Out of the ten flatteners, I believe that there are two extremely important and impactful ones. The first and more important of the two, as stated by Thomas Friedman himself, is the start up of the company, Netscape. Friedman expresses the importance of this flattener when he says, “August 9, 1995, is a day that changed the world forever”(Friedman). This flattener occurred in 1995 when the small start up company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and invented the commercial browser, which in turn brought the Internet alive. This browser allowed people to demonstrate everything on their computers. This advance in technology was very significant because it changed technology for not only computer scientists, but also for those that don’t specialize in computers, in order to make more extensive connections between people all over the world. However, the advancements did not just end there, but rather shocked everyone when the overinvestment of the fiber optic cable stock occurred, which ultimately led to the whole world