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Thomas Friedman has drawn on his years as
the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times to produce
an informative, thought-provoking, and insightful look at
globalization - the system that integrates capital, technology,
and information across national borders, creating a single
global market. Rightly or wrongly, it is influencing national
domestic policies and international relations throughout the
world and is important for each of us to understand. Friedman
does a great job of providing that understanding.
The metaphor of the Lexus (e.g. build and
ship in mass quantities anywhere) and the Olive Tree (e.g.
protecting cultural traditions) represents ongoing tension
between globalization and resident culture and community.
Friedman details the backlash globalization is producing among
those who feel penalized and marginalized by it, and he
describes what we need to do to keep this system in balance.
However, I do have some problems with Mr.
Friedman's glossing over how the WTO functions and some of what
is missing from the globalization "debate." Three concerns I
feel were not adequately covered are:
1) The WTO, which is an unelected,
unaccountable body, and which can effectively overrule our
nation's (or any nation's) laws, particularly environmental and
labor laws.
2) The public value of things (e.g. see
"The Natural Wealth of Nations" by D. M. Roodman) such as
forests (the lungs of the planet), clean water, clean air, etc.
is not taken into account by what Mr. Friedman calls the
Electronic Herd or by the WTO either, for that matter. As a
result, the environment is trampled in the name of economic
progress.
3) The skewing of political, economic, and
consumer decisions due to the gross effect of subsidies. By
distorting nearly everything through some form of subsidy (e.g.
oil prices should include military costs of "protecting" the
Middle East; wood product prices should include costs of
construction and maintenance of logging roads and loss of
habitat; the mortgage deduction and its effect on sprawl). I
feel we are not keeping score correctly and thus are reaching
the wrong decisions because we don't have the right data. I
don't feel these types of issues were given enough voice in Mr.
Friedman's book.
I liked the book and had trouble putting
it down; however, it would have been even more powerful had it
addressed some of these issues in more depth. If we don't reduce
and eventually stop global warming, as well as a myriad of other
potentially destructive environmental pratices, the human race
won't have a planet earth to globalize! |
