On The Leveling Of The World Is Flat By Thomas Friedman

These first three flatteners are the foundation to the next six forces that explain why the world is flat. The fourth factor is uploading which he considers to be “the most disruptive force of all” because communities of people all over the world and constantly uploading and collaborating open source software, blogs and Wikipedias like never before. The fifth force is known as Outsourcing which allows companies to save a lot of time and money on service and manufacturing activities due to cheap labor and fast distribution with the introduction of fiber-optic cables. The sixth factor is known as Off shoring which basically is the internal relocation of a company’s manufacturing or other kinds of processes due to less costly operations. Some good examples are China, Malaysia, Mexico and Brazil. The seventh factor is the Supply-chaining flattener where Friedman compares the modern retail supply to a river. As he states in the book “These little conveyor belts fed into a bigger belt, like streams feeding into a powerful river.” Here he is actually comparing the river to the supply-chain processes of Wal-Mart. He goes on to state that Wal-Mart is in fact the best example of a company using technology to streamline its shipping, distributing, and overall sales processes. Next is the eight “flattener” known as Insourcing. Friedman uses UPS as a great example of insourcing in that the employees of UPS

Throughout history, the progressions of mankind has given way to a perpetually globalizing world. Globalization, the “process of interaction and integration among peoples of different nations, has strengthened human ties while our race has formed societies in every corner of the globe. As our world becomes more interconnected, the resulting blend of cultures has led numerous societal features to be shared between peoples, blurring cultural division lines. Globalization’s tying binds may frustrate many modern travelers seeking unique and special travel experiences due to the standardization of destinations resulting from increasingly cozy international social relations, but continued and extensive human travel has demonstrated that the essential human urge to move is a product of our search for fulfillment in what is unfamiliar and will not be suppressed by global interconnection.

Over the past decades, Globalization had made the world a much smaller place. In the passage While I was Sleeping by Thomas L Freidman and The Rise of the Rest by Fareed Zakaria, there is a connection between the two passage. Thomas L. Freidman use the metaphor "the world is flat" which mean there are many competition in the world now. Fareed Zakaria address the U.S power is diminishing because the rest of the world is catching up. Along with the diminishing power, America is also outsourcing jobs to other nations where labor are cheap, and abundant of natural resource are available for use, but it is taking jobs away from many American.

Speaker Thomas Friedman is speaking at MIT, which is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “He is an American journalist specializing in foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues. “ (Daniel H. Pink) He is talking about the basis on what the book is about and how he understood this new phenomenon. The book is titled “The World Is Flat”. This title is referring to “the global economic playing field being leveled.” This is a tremendous achievement that all started with Christopher Columbus discovering North America in 1492. This was the first development of the globalization of the world, which today has taken over economies all over the world. This advancement of technology has led to “accidently making Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next-door neighbors”. Mr. Friedman then references in chapter one of his book about all of the encounters he had in India that led him to the conclusion, “The World Is Flat”.

What is an American? Thomas Friedman, Steven Critchley, and other say that America is falling, we are all violent animals. Yes. As Americans, we fight, we bully, we have nasty arguments, because we hold a different opinion or said something slightly offensive. We find it easier to raise our fist than to raise our dignity and peacefully talk or walk away. There are cases of violent acts all over the news, movies, music, TV, and social media. Violence is a problem within our commutes, however violence is not what makes an American or what defines America. It is our ability to come together in the face of adversity, in our darkest hour, that moment when everyone expects us to be out of the count, we pick each other up and fight back. For that we as Americans are big brothers we fight or bully each other but when someone else threatens or harms our fellow Americans we stand up and do everything in our power to make amends.No matter if it’s a person, another country, or mother nature.

Response: A flattener is a new way to view the global; economy as a level playing field .In a global economy that is considered flat all individuals have

By not discussing the state of our middle class at home, Friedman effectively neglects the most pressing concern for a majority of Americans. Aspects of this discussion can certainly be inferred from the reading, but the lack of explicit conversation suggests the author is more interested in representing the optimistic view of globalization. He is clearly aware of the downsides, but in many respects, allows the reader to put the pieces together for themselves.

Thomas Friedman and Wendell Berry expressed an opposing and favorable side towards the advancement of technology. In Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, he discusses the favorable aspects of technology, and how the advancement of technology is making our world “flatter.” Friedman is not opposed to this change and is in fact impressed with the new era we have entered into, as well as the positive aspects of technology. On the other hand, Wendell Berry’s Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer shows the other side of technology, and would not agree with many of the points Friedman brought up, opposing the advancement of technology. Berry suggests that computers are not necessary and demonstrates the negative aspects of technology.

The world is flat by Thomas Freidman is a very debatable book that is focused around how the world is becoming flat. Thomas uses the metaphor the world is flat to explain how the global competitive field is being leveled. He first realizes this on his trip to Bangalore, India. On his trip he is followed by a discovery channel crew and he interviews Indian businessmen and women working for American companies. He discover that they can communicate with there partners around the world by video conferencing this is where he began his own theory of how the world became flat. After his journey to India we travel to other flattening countries like China, Japan, and of course he investigates our own country and explains to the reader why the U.S.

In Chapter Two of Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, Friedman describes ten events and occurrences that have contributed to the world being flat. According to Friedman, a “flattened” world is one where all people and countries have the same opportunities; mainly, that other countries have the resources to challenge America. One of these flatteners is called work flow software, which is technology that has allowed work to become more efficient and productive. This technology utilizes the digital format of documents to make the transfer of the documents easier, as well as allowing more people access to the document. In Danville, work flow software has made a very large impact. In the Danville Area School District, high school students are each given their own Chromebook at no cost, while middle school

What’s so remarkable about his computer, is the journey that it took from “conception” to the time it was delivered at his house. The parts used to build Friedman’s computer came from places all over the world, including; China, Tennessee, Ireland, Brazil, Texas, and Malaysia. Friedman writes “I am telling you the story of my notebook to tell a larger story of geopolitics in the flat world… The real subject of this chapter is how these classic geopolitical threats might be moderated or influenced by the new forms of collaboration fostered and demanded by the flat world — particularly supply chaining” (169). Friedman believes that as the world “flattens” or becomes more connected through technology, international relations will change dramatically. He states “What is certain, though, is that as the world flattens, one of the most interesting dramas to watch in international relations will be the interplay between the traditional global threats and the newly emergent global supply chains” (Friedman 169). The interaction between two countries who used to be old-time threats could now change for the better. These two countries who fought in the past could now work together in the future as part of the same global supply

Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration, and, currently, he is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California and the Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He has written multiple books, and he is founding editor of the American Prospect magazine. In one of his most prominent articles “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer,” Robert Reich illustrates that the effects of globalization and the disappearance of restrictions have widened the gap between social classes. In the opening of his article, Robert Reich discusses how a person’s economic status within a nation is determined by the function that person performs, but he then goes off to say that in earlier times economic status fluctuated and could be influenced by the workers.

The United States used to be a place of dreams, a country where any willing body in the world envied. The opportunity to escape the old world and start anew, the chance to buy a home to your name, raise a family with little worries, have a secure job that would provide enough, and ultimately the right to say to the other nations, “I am free”. Sadly today, that opportunity is closing, the chance is slipping and that free America is being chained by the very same people robbing others of a life. The last time in history anyone saw this large of a robbery was during the French Revolution. This is only said because the world is emerging into a global economy that blurs national law and dries countries of their resources.

This writer tends to say that the globalization brings not just positive thingas well as something neutral. And brings out a good entry point to learn the globalization in japan, as he lists several important period and analysis them. Give some idea to understand toward Friedman’s flat and how japan should be defined as a flat world. During the Meiji period, Japan is isolated, and then the international trade’ power breaks down the situation. It share kind of same idea of Friedman’s 1.0 world, At the 1990s, “the combined forces of economic ties, environmental interconnectedness, technological linkages, cultural flows and political entanglements”, as the writer says that all these power makes japan enter the global world. Another things the

The ten "flatteners" in The World is Flat are 11/9/89, 8/9/95, work flow software, uploading, outsourcing, offshoring, supply-chaining, insourcing, in-forming, and the steroids