A Flat World, After All Analysis

In Friedman’s “It’s a Flat World, After All”, Friedman in a trip Bangalore, India accidentally “encountered the flattening of the world”. The following paper will analyze “It’s a Flat World, After All” and the flattening of the world. To conclude the paper I will summarize my thoughts on the flattening of the world.

According to Friedman globalization was classified into three time periods. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) was considered to shrink the world from large to medium due to countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) was considered to shrink the world from medium to small because of companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (2000 to present) is shrinking the world from small to tiny, and is flattening the playing field at the same time (Friedman).

Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were for the most part motivated by European and American companies and countries. However, Globalization 3.0 is motivated not only by individuals, but more diverse individuals. The benefit of a flattening world is that there is a connecting of knowledge, which leads to innovation from all areas--North, South, East, or West. With every benefit comes detriment; although this has caused a distraction it is not getting in the way of progress within many countries.

After a series of events or forces (also known as flatteners) over the last decade a person might agree that “the playing field is being leveled.” The first event, the fall of the Berlin Wall, which allowed us to think of the world as open territory. This is necessary in order to consider a global view for the future. The second event was Netscape going public. This is important because it furnished the browser to exhibit images and data stored on websites, and it lead to the purchase of fiber-optic telecommunications cable. Ground-breaking people-to-people connectivity was developed as a result of the Netscape event. The third force is what the author called workflow. Basically workflow is the connection between applications. How is this important you might ask? It’s important because it allows “people to work together in manipulating and shaping words all over the world.”

Due to the flatteners, countries such as: China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Central Asia now actively participate in a flattened world. This is shaping global economics and politics. Furthermore, this has presented a challenge to America to build