Evils of the Flat World

I attend a university where the majority of the students have what people call "left-leaning" ideologies. These students often speak of the evils of capitalism, the vices of the free market that led to the world's inequalities, and in general shows a blatant disdain towards the rich.

Naturally, these views would lead them to more often be in agreement with John Maynard Keynes than with Milton Friedman, Joseph Stieglitz over Robert Nozick, and the notion that an active role by the government in most aspects of society is . This is apparent in both the course curriculum and the discussion by students in class. Many of these discussions center around the issue of equality. Note that equality, in the context of the discussion, mostly refers to equality of condition, and seldom towards equality of opportunity.

One of the writers that these courses discuss is Tom Friedman, and his famous books "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and "The World Is Flat".

Ever since its debut in 2005, Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat" has been a massive hit. The main appeal of the book was probably Friedman's ability to conceptualize the global interconnectedness in a Flat World theory, which made sense to the general public.

I have generally been a supporter of Friedman's views: contrary to his critics, Friedman not only acknowledges the notion that currently the world is not flat, but that if certain measures are not taken, some parts of the world will never have a chance of being flattened.

However, it seems that while the flat world theory can be seen as true, its consequences are not always favorable.

As a result of this flat world, millions of American jobs are being shipped overseas to manufacturing nations that can produce the same product at a much lower cost. This is economics 101, minimizing costs while maximizing profits. It's how businesses work.

Friedman claims that the launching of Netscape, and the subsequent .com boom, is #1 of the ten principle 'flatteners' of the world. The magic of the internet is that it has given the global population the ability to gain access to unprecedented amounts of information, anywhere, anytime.

But of course, as observations and predictions go, one can never be perfect. The internet soon became the white blood cells of the international economic body, and it is now evident that too much of it does not do the system any good.

My notion was greatly strengthened by the growing sentiment that the newspaper industry is beginning to crumble, the major cause of which is because rather than purchasing hard copies at the news stand, people are accessing news at the internet, and to their delight, for free.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle continues to lay off staffers as sales of the paper version of the paper kept on decreasing. Other papers, such as the Seattle Post-Intelligentner and the Denver Rocky-Mountain News, have already lost their print versions. It is quite possible that the print versions of newspapers will completely vanish in the foreseeable future.

It's ironic that the industry that is experiencing immense hardships as a result of the flat world is the one where Friedman achieved his major success.

I personally read the big papers, such as the New York Times and the LA Times online, partly because the print versions are not available here and also because it is more convenient. It appears that the flat world can be a double edged sword: it is because of the flattening of the world that I am able to read the Times here, but it also because of the flat world that some of these papers might go out of business.

I can only hope that the newspaper media will be able to find a way to generate revenue on the internet, which is not entirely possible. For one, all the major newspapers can unite and begin charging people for viewing the newspaper online. But instead of helping their financial situations, this would probably grossly antagonize the public and everyone will stop reading these papers.

The journalist media is one of the core elements in a functional democracy. It serves as a medium between the state and its people, and it is to hold governments accountable for their actions. Let us hope that this industry will figure out a way to get out this financial crisis.

P.S. referring to the post above, I remember that it was the newspaper newspiece I saw on TV that got me thinking about this entire piece:
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/
under "would you notice if your daily newspaper disappeared?"