Comments on: If the world is flat then it is a multi storey world. http://tahirhameed.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/if-the-world-is-flat-then-it-is-a-multi-storey-world/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:38:59 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: concerned citizen http://tahirhameed.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/if-the-world-is-flat-then-it-is-a-multi-storey-world/#comment-19 concerned citizen Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:46:41 +0000 http://tahirhameed.wordpress.com/?p=43#comment-19 I felt Ha-Joon Chang's book made lot more sense than Friedman's did, mainly because the latter only concentrates on technology, and how that has resulted in a "flattened world. But, surely there is more to globalziation than just technology! And there are people who are poor, disenfranchised and uneducated and living in rural areas - all of whom do not appear in Friedman's book. It is all his "friends," who are the corporate boses, whether they be in US or in India that he talks about! And ofcourse the privileged few who have been fortunate enough to get educated in science and technology. But for all the above poor people, the so-called benefits of globalization simply by-passed them. Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank) said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization. So, obviously, all India is not going to migrate into middle class, if anything the inequality is far, far worse now, after the advent of globalization. Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in apalling conditions, to churn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours. There is an other small, but interesting book I would recommend reading, by Aronica and Ramdoo, "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller," which offers a counterperspective to Friedman's theory on globalization. It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman's book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn't a single table or data footnote in Friedman's entire book. "Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution," says Aronica. You may want to see www.mkpress.com/flat and watch 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! www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation www.mkpress.com/extreme http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html I felt Ha-Joon Chang’s book made lot more sense than Friedman’s did, mainly because the latter only concentrates on technology, and how that has resulted in a “flattened world. But, surely there is more to globalziation than just technology! And there are people who are poor, disenfranchised and uneducated and living in rural areas – all of whom do not appear in Friedman’s book. It is all his “friends,” who are the corporate boses, whether they be in US or in India that he talks about! And ofcourse the privileged few who have been fortunate enough to get educated in science and technology. But for all the above poor people, the so-called benefits of globalization simply by-passed them.

Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank) said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization. So, obviously, all India is not going to migrate into middle class, if anything the inequality is far, far worse now, after the advent of globalization.

Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in apalling conditions, to churn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours.

There is an other small, but interesting book I would recommend reading, by Aronica and Ramdoo, “The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller,” which offers a counterperspective to Friedman’s theory on globalization. It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman’s book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn’t a single table or data footnote in Friedman’s entire book.

“Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution,” says Aronica.

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

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