by Shirley Lendway

Created on: November 08, 2010

Fascism in the Flat World

The World is Flat is a brilliant tool for understanding today’s technology and how it is and was affected by history. Beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall on the Kabalistic 11/9 of 1989, Thomas Friedman hails the migration from “authoritarian rule with centrally-planned economics” to power through “democratic, consensual, free-market oriented governance” (52). Taking a technological viewpoint, he credits the rise of the Windows-enabled PC coupled with the fall of the Berlin Wall for setting the flattening process in motion. 

The first part of the book describes the ten forces that were responsible for the flattening. Then Friedman describes the resulting triple convergence though anecdotes, a writing device he uses throughout the book. He expresses the long-held opinion that the assumption of a secure job with average effort by the middle class has eroded. In Bookshelf online, Publishers Weekly states that he argues that “ubiquitous telecommunications have finally obliterated all impediments to international competition” (1).

Thomas Friedman is excited about the new technology because he sees it as the gateway for global competition. He urges parents to cultivate a love for math and science in their children so they can be part of this competitive market, a free market consisting of Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” He describes the technology as a global opportunity. If Americans do not seize the day and become entrepreneurs, they will fall victim to the out-sourcing of jobs to those in foreign countries who can speak English and manufacturing jobs continuing to be off-shored to China.

Friedman’s book eventually becomes a plea to every American to jump on the technology boat. He cries, “People are always assuming that everything that is going to be invented must have been invented already but it hasn’t.” (Friedman 269). He argues that globalization is a leveler of inequalities in societies.

Corporate rule is the new establishment of authoritarian, centrist rule. It suppresses the spirit of invention that Friedman wishes to uphold. While Friedman enthralls the reader with his insights into the philosophy of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, he is blind to the threat imposed by corporate rule.

The eighties provided more changes than the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The World Bank and IMF imposed trade liberalization and privatization. In 1995,

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