[lbo-talk] T. L. Friedman explains 'Globalization 3.0'

[Carl Remick]

The regrettably irrepressible Thomas L. Friedman is back with another 
heaping serving of world explication -- _The World Is Flat: A Brief History 
of the Twenty-First Century_ -- examining all the "releases" of 
globalization that have been experienced in the last 500 years.  TLF's first 
lie is his title, since the book runs 488 pages, making it no "brief" 
history at all -- especially for a writer as punishing to read as TLF.

Fortunately the Washington Post managed to secure a book reviewer, Warren 
Bass, who does not find perusing TLF as painful as getting dragged across 
broken glass; in fact, he speaks of TLF's "eloquent columns."  Yet even Bass 
is flummoxed by TLF's relentless fantasy-based view of the world.  Review at 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17314-2005Mar31.html>

One of the more interesting references in this piece is to a new, cutesy 
conceit of TLF called the "Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention," i.e.: "No 
two countries that are both part of a major global supply chain, like 
Dell's, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both 
part of the same global supply chain."  TLF's earlier version of this idiocy 
(which Bass does not identify) was called the "Golden Arches Theory of 
Conflict Prevention" in Friedman's 1999 _The Lexus and the Olive Tree_.  The 
Golden Arches Theory noted that "no two countries that both had McDonald's 
had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's."  This 
theory was invalidated in a major way when NATO waged war on Serbia.

TLF, of course, never learns.  Neither does anyone who reads his books.

Carl