The book I have chosen to read was “The earth is flat”, by Thomas Friedman. This book began with Mr. Freiedman coming to the realization that the world is flat, meaning that technology has provided a level playing field across the world. He came to have this understanding while on a trip to India. While there he realized that intellectual property and investments could be delivered straight to his doorstep in America. Freidman also introduced the concept of globalization in chapter 1. This was broken up into globalization 1.0 which lasted until around the 1800s and shrank the earth from large to medium. Globalization 2.0 which lasted between 1800 and 2000 and made an even smaller world through global integration and multinational companies. …show more content…
Who’s being exploited? As an example he looks at a case involving Indiana vs India where the citizens of Indiana were outraged because the state was contacting a call center in India to outsource the unemployment department. This led to the states citizens being outraged and forced the cancelation of the contract. But he wonders who was being exploited, the government of Indiana for having to pay for higher wages by raising taxes on the individuals. Or the citizens of India who was asked to perform the jobs at a significantly smaller wage that the people of Indiana. This same chapter also dealt with the politics of how flat we should allow the world to get before we lose our identities. Things like how should we feel about workers in other countries working in slave like labor as long as we keep our prices low? And at what point does the world become too …show more content…
He argues that America has always led the world with its innovation in these fields and with the loss of so many trained individuals America would take a back seat to the rest of the world. He blames this on what he refers to as Americas “dirty little secrets”. Secret one was blames the generation that was motivated by scientific advancements like landing on the moon, now going into retirement. The second dirty little secret was the ambition gap. This is the fact that Americans often look down on low prestige jobs like call center operator, while people from other countries look highly upon these jobs. This can be attributed to so many Americans growing up with a sense of entitlement. The last dirty little secret is the education gap. America used to be the country that all other countries sent their kids to in order to get the best education, but as America’s education system declines other countries are increasing theirs. This has led to gifted individuals staying in their own countries instead of bringing knowledge and innovation to
In society, many make a living by working for others to get the necessities they need. Workers face many struggles such as wage cuts, horrendous work conditions, an increase in hours, due to these conditions they are labeled ‘wage slaves.’ These individuals have no choice but to work in these conditions. The growth of industry in the United States made corruption easier and made employers richer while the poor stayed poor. The employers justify their actions by arguing that the employees have a choice to go and work for someone else. However, workers do not have the choice to work for others since most employers were using the same method to make a profit. Workers are treated unfairly, but they use many effective techniques such as strikes
1.) The topic of globalization is a very broad one. Globalization itself can take on many forms as well as definitions. To begin, globalization has roots within civilization. From a historical perspective, globalization consisted of market-trading and expansion of different crafts and specialties. For example, someone who specialized in textiles and fabric of clothing would possibly trade with someone who cultivated agricultural goods. Through this process, development of a cultural aspect had grown. People were communicating more and exchanging goods or items from all over the world. This diminished the language barrier due to interface that was essential for trade. People were learning new languages and integrating themselves into
Globalization refers to the development of an integrated world economy, exchange of cultural views, thoughts, and products (Wikipedia, 2013). Pologeorgis (2012) states that, essentially globalization began with the exploration and settlement of new lands. Communication and transportation advances have aided in this process.
Industrializing America was the quarter stone that ultimately transitioned this developing nation into a dominating power. The resources and demand for expansion sent a worldwide calling to any and to all who wished to advance themselves in this new world, where opportunities were endless. Indeed many responded to the call, such as the Carnegie family, of which was seeking rebirth to stabilize themselves after losing everything. Fortunately the Carnegies had made the right decision and from that an unexpected industrial giant was soon to emerge. As we know, Andrew Carnegie was amongst the elite, an entrepreneur, a business genius, a revolutionary due to his refinement of steel production and statistically inclined mind. He started from the ground and fought himself to the top of America’s social economic class, as described in Harold C. Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business. As Livesay states “he created that industrial colossus” (pg. vii), and I acknowledge that prominent feature that Carnegie brought to the industrialization, however, there are inconsistencies that leaves the reader uncertain about the stated information.
Americans are raised from a young age to be the best that they can be, never give up, and reach for any goal no matter how unattainable. One of the biggest examples of this is the rise of the American automobile industry. Not only was there competition between the Big Three American automakers, but also from foreign competitors. This competition led the charge for American car companies to reinvent themselves. In order to beat the competition, they had to make if better, faster, and less expensive (Jayaram, Vickery, Droge, 1999). This competitive spirit is seen across many levels of American culture from sporting events to space travel, anything less than the best is
That fact that Americans are the most productive people on the planet says it all. According to Knoema.com, America's Gross Domestic Product, the single most commonly referenced measure of the value of goods produced by a country, was almost twice that of the second closest country in 2015. Americans have dominated this metric since the 1930's and we haven't let up since Jacoby's article in 2008. One could argue that being the biggest producer on the planet may not clarify the value we place on intellectualism, but leading the world in productivity is a feat that requires Americans as a people to continually innovate our technology, our education, our lifestyle, and of course
This eventually makes the reader realize countless of possessions and benefits that every citizen uses daily was in fact from the hard work of immigrants. But not many truly knows this with how many claim that ‘immigrants will steal their jobs’. Also many don’t realize how easy immigrants can lose their jobs. Because companies are aware of the fact who is illegal or not, when an employee, who came in illegal, is not seen useful to them anymore, the company will easily deport them right back to the country they came from. Now this where similarities of slavery start showing up. First, there’s the jobs themselves, the work immigrants do is described as dirty, unpleasant, heavy, and dangerous. This is very much how slave’s jobs were detailed to be like as well. Another parallel between these ideas is the income these groups make, or rather how very little they made. When slavery was declared illegal, congress start a new labor code called Free Wage Labor where former slave owners had to paid former slaves in addition housing, food, and healthcare, like many companies presently to provide for immigrants. But what those former owners did back then is they’d barely pay their workers anything and with addition of taxes, former slaves were in too much debt to live on their own and find a different job. Essentially they were trapped in working for the
According to Osterhammel and Petersson, globalization “summarizes a wide spectrum of experiences shared by many people” (2). I agree with this statement and would go on to claim that globalization is a group of processes and events, some beneficial and some harmful, that have resulted in the spread of networks across the world. However, this spread of networks did not happen over night. This is in part because not all interactions are transformed into networks, as these require a certain degree of longevity. In order for interactions to become networks, groups must consider the range between each other and their interactions must be important or impactful, intense, fast, durable, and frequent. For the reason that each of these characteristics must be present in order for networks to form, globalization has been in the works for many centuries and is still at work today. Therefore, while the historical events and processes of past centuries have provided the roots of globalization, the modernization of recent decades has built upon these roots to connect the world in a way
I think one aspect of the book I found most troubling is the working conditions some people around the world are subjected to. Even today these poor working conditions continue with the factory fires the author speaks about at the epilogue. I think many of us in the United States take what we have for granted. The authors reference to the poor working conditions around the
The term globalization can be defined as a process by which societies, regional economies and cultures have been integrated via a global network of transportation, communication and trade. It has both positive and negative impacts in all the areas that it touches on be it economical, social, technology, cultural, political, environment, health or any other. Globalization started to have an impact on businesses world wide in the eighteenth century since that time marks the merging of modernity and globalization. However, in the modern sence, globalization kicked off after the end of Second World War since its during that time that leaders felt the urge to break down the borders
Globalization: The process of social, political, economic, cultural, and technological integration among countries around the world (Luthans & Doh, 2012).
Some view globalization as being inevitable and key to our economic future. It has the potential of making societies richer through trade, and creates knowledge and understanding to people around
Globalization can best be defined as the shrinking of our world. As technology advances the gaps between Countries is closed, and our society as a whole becomes more integrated. Globalization is something that has been occurring for thousands of years, with one early example of Globalization being the use of the Silk Road, which connected China and Europe during the Middle Ages. Globalization can offer businesses many was to increase business, while at the same time threatening them (Globalization101.org, 2014).
Joseph E. Stiglitz. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.
Scholte briefly examines six differing theoretical approaches to explaining globalization – what are they? What is the central theme of each?