Question

Thomas Friedman argues that “The world is flat.” He claims that globalization has flattened the world over the years, and it will continue to do so. On the contrary, Pankaj Ghemawat argues that actually, the world isn’t flat.

1. What does Thomas Friedman mean by globalization and when he says, "The World is Flat"? Provide an explanation and examples.

2. According to the speaker, Pankaj Ghemawat, what is globalization and what factors prevent globalization from being flat? How globalized are we? What are some assumptions we make about globalization that are untrue? Why is it important to be accurate in making assumptions about globalization? Give examples.

3. In your opinion, does Globalization make the world flat? Between the two authors, whose arguments do you find more compelling, and why?

at least 3-5 sentences for each question.

Answer 1

Ans : According to Thomas Friedman's view on the globalization he means that flattening is due to the convergence of personal computer with fibre optic microcable with rise of work flow software.He said that because in the competitive playing field between the industrial and emerging economies and the individual entrepreneurs and the companies are becoming the part of global supply chainand thus it has levelled the world.

The examples that led to Friedman saying ths theory are that:

(a) Workflow Structure: Friedman believes that it has become the whole new foundation for the collaboration. The emergence of softwares like HTML etc have created a platform that people can work with other people on more stuff than ever before and in terms of collaboration it has flattened the world.

(b) Outsourcing: Friedman states that outsourcing has enabled the companies to split the service and manufacturing process into components so that all the activities can be performed in the cost efficient manner and it is possible due to globalization which implies that only due to the opening of the economies that the companies are able to split their activities in different countries and in cost reducing manner.

Pankaj Ghemawat view on globalization is different in sense that he says that the world is not flat and there is semi - globalization and the both regulation and integration coexist in the world and complement each other. He says that there is a big disconnect between the people,s beliefs about the globalization and reality.

The assumptions that we make about the globalization that we take general opinion of the people and we dont take into account the facts. There is degree of inaccuracy in people's view of globalization. They think they are the experts with their own personal experiences. Not only that there are exagerrated views on the transformative nature of technology in shaping globalization which needs to be changed.

We need to change these assumptions in order to fully understand the nature of globalization so that we can understand how world really works. World has become integrated and barriers between the countries remain significant and we need to understand that.

According to me,the globalization makes the world not fully flat and the arguements of Pankaj Ghemawat seem more compelling because of fact that in real life some protectionism is there and regulation exists along with globalization, as we can see recently in case of US- China trade war there rae high chances of rising protectionism and more economies are caring about their own people and businesses and some degrre of integration is affected and regulatory measures have risen in fact. Thus Pankaj's view is more compelling.