Summary Of Thomas Friedman's Argument For The Flat World

Thomas Friedman’s argument for the “flat world” fundamentally claims that the third phase of globalization has leveled the world playing field. According to Friedman, the first phase, Globalization 1.0, shrank the world through “countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest” (Friedman 2). Then Globalization 2.0 shrank the world further when companies globalized world markets, labor, and resources. Finally, Friedman argues that we are now in Globalization 3.0, in which the world is not only being shrunken down further, but also flattened. Unlike 1.0 and 2.0, the driving force behind Globalization 3.0 is individuals and small groups. Essentially Friedman says that globalization has become individualized such that people across the globe are becoming empowered to compete on an even playing field. However, it hasn’t empowered everyone equally. In order for individuals or small groups to enter the world playing field they must have access to the

Neoliberalism can be compared to a laissez-faire approach to economics which favors the privatization of public services and limits government regulation and size. According to Jonathan D. Ostry, the two main roles of a government with a neoliberal agenda are to increase competition through deregulation by opening up domestic markets to international competition and to limit the debt accumulated by the state. In 1970 the economy had become stagnant and inflation was rising, so Ronald Regan, with the help of intellectuals like Milton Friedman, made the case for neoliberalism and convinced the American people that they needed less government interference so that markets could function freely and promote growth (Sparke 456). Neoliberalism and Reaganomics jointly fueled globalization and drove competition which helped flatten the world playing field, as Friedman would