Globalization

9 Pages 2174 Words

sion. Cable television allowed all types of information to be transmitted to people around the world. With the three democratization’s, corporations and governments around the world will have to restructure themselves to take advantage of this new system of globalization. Friedman feels that only the competitive will survive. He feels that alternative democracies and governments will not work and the only answer is free-market capitalism.
Friedman describes the market place today as being an “Electronic Herd” consisting of multinationals, such as IBM and GM, as well as all those people involved in the buying and selling of stocks, bonds and currencies around the world. Friedman describes the herd as being able to move around freely with the end of the Cold War and the democratization of finance, technology and information. Friedman refers to the electronic herd as having people who are “shapers” or “adapters” in that shapers will create standards while adapters will adjust to a shaper’s regulations and learn to prosper from them. Friedman admits that unless countries have a strong culture and environmental filters than will have trouble interacting with the electronic herd because it will overwhelm their cultural identity turning the world in to a “global mesh.”
Friedman does discuss the negative effects on the economy from globalization such as the widening gap between the wealthy and poor because the middle class ends up either getting richer or poorer. Also, some times a nation may not be ready for the effects of globalization because of the new ideologies that arise such as capitalism, an ally of globalization, versus socialism. Yet Friedman states that no nation can resist globalization plus people in impoverished nations want to join the system because they realize it will improve their quality of life. Friedman feels the best p...