The World Is Flat: Book Review

After reading this book there were several things that I changed my mind on and well as many things that I did not know and know. I thought all the chapters were very interesting so I am going to breakup this report through chapter, to talk about the impact each chapter individually had on me. One of my biggest doubts about this book is understanding how companies know when to stop when it comes to being global, because at the end of the day since everything is cheaper in India why not do absolutely everything there and just have the clients in the U.S. If there is something is something I can take out of this book is understanding how much power an individual has right now compared to many years ago and that we as individuals are only bounded by our imagination.

I would like to start with the first chapter, I thought the first chapter made me change a lot the way I thought about some things. First, it made me change the way I thought about India, I thought India was not a big industrialized country, after reading the chapter I realized that it is very industrialized. I understood that most companies in the United States outsource to India mostly call centers, which made me think about how hopefully when I own a company the best and cheapest thing to do is to outsource a lot of jobs to India. When Thomas Friedman first started talking about the world being flat I did not quite understand why he was making that assumption but after finishing the chapter I understood and totally agreed with his idea. I was very impressed about the tax return outsourcing they do in India, I had no idea that this was such a thing. United States lost many service jobs to India in the recent years which made me think how if you asked someone may years ago about preference of being born and studying and working in the United States or in India, they would say the U.S with no doubt, but nowadays there is a lot of people that would say India because of the abundance of jobs and the pay of the jobs. Most of the information in this chapter was a complete surprise for me and it is interesting but at the same time scary because mostly anything can be outsourced which could mean the rapid decrease of job availability in the United Sates. I thought the second chapter was informative and interesting. I had never thought of these events as being a key part in the expansion of globalization. After the reading the book I understood that each event led to the other creating a trend towards globalization. After reading about the first flattener which was the collapse of the Berlin wall, it made me think of the importance of that event to globalization, and I had never thought about this this way. It was the only flattener out of the ten that I did not see as a key part to globalization before reading the book, therefore the book made me change my mind about that topic. I think all the events had a lot to do with globalization, in my opinion the internet and then In-forming and “the steroids” are nowadays the biggest contributors to globalization.

Chapter 3 was a little confusing for me, I was not sure about several things he explained. I thought the three convergences he talked about were very interesting and I feel like this chapter made me realize of how everything that has been happening has some certain of impact in globalization but I do not really pay attention to each individual event, I just pay attention to the result. I also never thought about the smoke screens that made people miss the triple convergence. I just do not agree with dot-co burst being one of those smoke screens because I do not believe that people linked that with globalization. When it comes to chapter 4, I was glad that he touched on several points since reading the first chapters left me with some doubts. First, I was thinking about all the flatteners not only affecting the business side but also other sides of society. Which he touches on in this chapter and clears up my mind a little, because in my mind if the world was becoming flat then the whole world would have the same identity yet he says that there are some things like religion, culture, etc. that won’t be eliminated. One thing about this chapter that I found very interesting was when he explained that since the world is flattening, employees that are in a lower level must work very hard to keep their jobs because higher management is now able to do basic tasks. I thought this chapter cleared several doubts but at the same time made me think more deeply about other things.

Reading through chapter 17 made me realize how much power we as individuals in a society have nowadays to make a change. I thought it was incredible how he was encouraging people in this chapter to use their imagination but use it for good, to create rather than to destroy. This chapter had an impact on me because first it made me understand that we do not have to live in fear of what is next because of events like 9/11 and second it made me think about ways that I can create and have a good influence in this world. I chose to read chapter 10 “The Virgin Guadalupe” because this is the virgin I am devoted to and the title of the chapter intrigued me. After reading this chapter I was impressed on how developing countries have not yet submerged into the flattening of the world. But then thinking about it and the policies that Friedman stated would help, I disagreed with him in some things. Coming from a developing country I know that there is way more than what he stated to succeed in a flat world and many things that stop developing countries from succeeding, starting with the level of corruption in politics. For example, Venezuela, Venezuela has a great education system and great professionals but it is very difficult for those great professionals to stay in the country working because of insecurity, inflation which in 2018 was at 10 million percent, and many other things that stop them from succeeding in their country and therefore have to migrate and work in another country. I feel like this chapter is missing more information regarding what stops developing countries from succeeding in a flat world.

I thought the book was mostly great, and I would recommend this book for people to read because it helped me understand many things as well as think about things I would not even think about before. The book made me understand the amount of power an individual has nowadays compared to before, we as individuals can have a huge impact in the world easily, we could be just a click away. It also made me understand why countries outsource a lot to India, but it made me think about of why would companies stop outsourcing if it is way cheaper for them. Also, I never thought about those 10 individual events as part of globalization but now I think that those ten events are somewhat connected since they created a trend to reach globalization. I do want to finish saying that I thought he dedicated too many chapters to the United States and globalization meant to the United States and just spent 1 or 2 chapters on globalization in the rest of the countries, I would have liked for him to spend more time talking about globalization in other countries.