Friedman goes global
Thomas Friedman, one of my favorite editorialists at the New York Times, has just written a new article in the New York Times Magazine that talks about the rapid shrinking of our world and the rise of globalization. Check out this great lead:
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''
You may notice next to the article is a multimedia section. The clip titled "The Other Side of Outsourcing" gives you a pretty good idea of what Friedman has been up to lately. That is, trying to prove that all of this hubba hubba in the media about outsourcing American jobs fails to give the public the full spectrum of what is going on. To make a long story short, both skilled and unskilled workers in places like India and other poorer nations are benefitting greatly from the recent technology boom, which gives them access to jobs that were once held only by Westerners in developed countries. I happen to agree with the concept of globalization because I believe in free trade and the idea that the wealth of the world is slowly being more evenly distributed through this process.
No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. ''India had no resources and no infrastructure,'' said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. ''It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.'' India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. ''But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,'' Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ''it was the foreigners who benefited.'' India got a free ride.
So in essence, what Friedman is trying to prove is that it is in fact in our interest to be supporting the occupational development of people in places like India. Because, as we were all hopefully taught, what goes around comes around. Mindboggling stuff indeed.
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''
You may notice next to the article is a multimedia section. The clip titled "The Other Side of Outsourcing" gives you a pretty good idea of what Friedman has been up to lately. That is, trying to prove that all of this hubba hubba in the media about outsourcing American jobs fails to give the public the full spectrum of what is going on. To make a long story short, both skilled and unskilled workers in places like India and other poorer nations are benefitting greatly from the recent technology boom, which gives them access to jobs that were once held only by Westerners in developed countries. I happen to agree with the concept of globalization because I believe in free trade and the idea that the wealth of the world is slowly being more evenly distributed through this process.
No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. ''India had no resources and no infrastructure,'' said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. ''It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.'' India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. ''But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,'' Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ''it was the foreigners who benefited.'' India got a free ride.
So in essence, what Friedman is trying to prove is that it is in fact in our interest to be supporting the occupational development of people in places like India. Because, as we were all hopefully taught, what goes around comes around. Mindboggling stuff indeed.
posted by Remz Pokorny @ 10:12 PM
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