The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
“Yes, the consumer in us wants Wal-Mart prices, with all the
fat gone. But the employee in us wants a little fat left on the bone, the way
Costco does it, so that it can offer health care to almost all its employee,
rather than just less than half of them, as Wal-Mart does. But the shareholder
in us wants Wal-Mart’s profit margins, not Costco’s. Yet the citizen in us
wants Costco’s benefits, rather than Wal-Mart’s, because the different
ultimately may have to be paid for by society.”
The world has changed and it continues to change and not in
the notable, transforming ways history has seen before. Governments are not
being toppled. Political revolutions are not exploding. But the power is shifting,
it is shifting to the people.
With the rapid rise of consumer technology, more people are
connected than ever before. The world has become much smaller, or as Thomas L.
Friedman says, “The world is flat.”
Consumers do not have to rely on the restricted knowledge of
real estate agents to find the perfect home, as countless internet sites can
show you the entire market. No longer do we have to go from car lot to car
lot to find a great deal on a used car, and no longer do you have to throw on a
suit and walk up and down an office building looking for a job. The information
has come to the people and the people have changed the game.
Now small company with little or no capital can become a
global player over night. Established companies must learn to adapt and
quickly.
The World is Flat by
Thomas L. Friedman is a very interesting read on the changing times. The latest
edition of this book was written in 2007, right before the start of the great
recession, so it would be interesting to see if Friedman’s thoughts were
changed by this major market malfunction.
This book is good but a little long. Friedman includes a lot
of interviews and anecdotes, however his stories do not have the power or sharpness
of Malcolm Gladwell or the Freakonomics authors.
