A Response to Selling Out
This is a follow up to Anonymous. I have written it here because I want to make sure it gets a broader readership than it would in the comments. Anonymous feels America is “selling out for profits.” I think it is far worse. I believe America has it’s head in the sand and is resting on its historic laurels. Like any great photographer or actor or any creative person, you are only as good as your last creation and we have not had any great ideas in a long time. The new ideas, in manufacturing, technology and ways to compete are all coming from places like China, India and other Asian countries. We are losing because we don’t compete in the new market. We’re living a reality that is 25 to 30 years old. Read The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. Here is a short excerpt from the Amazon description. It addresses this very point.
“Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete–and win–not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn’t forget the “mutant supply chains” like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.)” – Amazon Books
I think that makes my point. America is asleep at the wheel when it come to change, whether it be in manufacturing or the ever-growing threat of a right wing Islamic fundamentalism. Note here, I am not saying we need to be fear mongers nor do we need to be building higher walls. But we do need to understand that there is an agenda and we can not combat it with bullets. Reading between the lines, you may have formed the conclusion that I’m a pacifist. Well, I don’t think I am, at least not yet. I think America has a right to defend herself, but weapons are not going to squelch an ideology. We are not fighting the Soviet Union any more that we are competing in the world’s economy with big business. The times have changed. The World is Flat, and we need to understand it.
Interesting. I will buy fellows book and read it.
Dialogue opened..this is what I like about thoughtful blogs like yours.
Thanks.
Wayne Yuhasz
Great, glad to have you as a reader. Another good book of his is on this topic “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” http://www.amazon.com/Lexus-Olive-Tree-Understanding-Globalization/dp/0385499345
Two books to read, which offer a counterperspective to Friedman’s “The World is Flat.”
The Harvard Professor, Pankaj Ghemawat’s latest book, “Redefining Global Strategy”. I read an article of his published in the journal, “Foreign Policy”, where he argues that the world is, at best, only semi-globalized. His argument being that Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic aspects of a nation come in the way of total globalization from taking place and cites examples of the same.
The other small, but interesting book, is by Aronica and Ramdoo, “The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller.” It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike.
You may want to see http://www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch http://www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman’s
“The World is Flat”.
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! http://www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
http://www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html
Great! I will check these out. It may not be right away, but it looks like good, provocative reading. I will say this, no matter what Friedman says, or any of the authors you listed, I personally have experienced a globalizing world. Living in a relatively small city in Kashmir, India and waking up one morning to riots in the streets due to a cartoon in Danish small newspaper half a world away, to me, proves a certain amount of globalization.
I just watched the two videos Sift Happens and Extreme Competition. Very good! I really like Extreme Competition. This speaks to what we have been discussing. But it doesn’t seem to contradict Friedman, in fact just the opposite.
I would like to see more blog entries like this one