Everyone told me Thomas Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat, was something I could simply not miss reading -possibly the most important book of the new century. Especially for someone approaching entry into the American workforce, Freidman's view of the new world economy was beyond simple vision and eloquence; it's a fundamental understanding that could make or break a young career. With such compelling recommendations, I went and started reading something else right away. No need to rush into something so important; (this is also how I approach career decisions). Since the most forceful recommendation came from my mother this Christmas, I've read Guns Germs and Steel, Ender's Game, The Life of Pi, The Plot Against America, Slaughterhouse Five, Naked, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Wisdom of Crowds, Conspiracy of Fools, The Audacity of Hope, The Corporation, and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. (I highly recommend the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th in that list.) Running out of material and looking for something hefty and non-fiction, I turned to Friedman's book -it is the most important work of the new century, after all. I read Friedman's columns often enough (though none of his books until this one) and while I disagree with him a lot, I generally respect his opinion. By and large, his knowledge of the Middle East and thoughtful coverage of global political issues are commendable, and the world is definitely lucky to have such a brilliant mind. Still, this book was a more than a little frustrating to me. When I say I consider myself a capitalist/idealist, I say it knowing that requires a certain degree of faith. Faith in good intentions, faith in the human capacity, faith in the justice of world systems. Well if I have "faith" in capitalism, Friedman is an ascetic monk. He beams about the glorious global free markets and takes the reader along on his "discovery" that the world is being flattened -that is, the playing field is being leveled by the wonders of modern technology. Today, peoples' taxes, tech support calls, even radiology analysis are all being done from India via the internet, and ISN'T THAT JUST COOL? I keep thinking, "Well, yeah but…" because he glosses over a lot of major problems with globalization by skipping through the highlights like a happy ray of distracted sunshine. I keep getting this mental image of him leaping and twirling between the glistening tips of beautiful skyscrapers, tossing out flower petals, and singing about global free markets while hundreds of homeless people in the streets below look up, petals sticking in their hair, saying, "what the fuck is he singing about?" OK, so that was a little vivid, but you get the idea. There's a lot of poverty caused by globalization, and Friedman refutes this only by saying something like "some people envision [fill in decrepit scene of slave labor], but the opposite is in fact true!" at which point, you're like "wow, that's wonderful -I can't wait to hear the incredible facts he's going to say next to back that up so I can feel great about that." Instead he tells a story of a specific factory somewhere in India where people are treated well, paid generously, and everyone smiles. All the time. He treats a single case as overwhelming evidence, and while he does have a good many impressive stories, that's not enough to counter the fears in his readers. Not me, at least. I want some statistic like, "the median income of Chinese manual laborers working for American companies is the equivalent of $20,000 per year, and over 90% of factories follow the USDoL standards for workplace conditions," but he can't say that because it's not true. He also manages to write a 500 page book on globalization without discussing one of the gravest economic dangers of our times -the U.S. trade deficit. You don't need a PhD in economics to understand that the U.S. can't import more than it exports and last too long on loans. Outsourcing has become a money vacuum, sending billions of dollars abroad every year -money that doesn't come back. Now, I'm no protectionist - one of those people who thinks Americans somehow deserve work, rights, and a higher standard of living more than anyone else in the world. That kind of thing should be for everyone, and they're not sum-zero factors. I don't think that an American deserves to have that job any more than a Pakistani or Brazilian just because of citizenship (provided they're compensated equally because, hell, they're doing the SAME JOB), and I think in an ideal world, companies would be spread across dozens of cultures to achieve the best global assimilation of minds and talents. I do, however, think that if the deficit doesn't improve soon, the entire U.S. economy will be careening towards collapse, and that's not good for anybody. We can't just, as Friedman might argue, throw up thousands of jobs a week to the jaws of a free market, because the economy simply can't keep up. Last year, the U.S. had to take out a loan to pay off the interest on our debts. Let me repeat that: last year, the U.S. had to take out a loan to pay off the INTEREST on our debt. You know how on your credit card bill, they give you the option of paying the gazillion dollars you owe or just $15 to put it off for a month? The U.S. had to take out a loan because we couldn't scrounge up the $15. It's getting bad, folks. I do agree with Friedman on this point: outsourcing is just happening too fast for the economy to adjust. As with all changes, some people just get the short end of the stick. We're not going to pay someone to bend paper clips into shape if we have a machine that does it 100x faster, simply so we can save that noble man's job. Sometimes it just has to happen, but if it happens slowly, the economy can adjust smoothly and, as the demand decreases, so will the number of people entering the profession. That way you won't wind up with thousands of trained paper clip benders out on the streets. At the torrid speed of outsourcing, however, a college freshman's major can become obsolete by the time he/she graduates. Friedman has a distinctly cold-hearted response to unemployed America: tough luck, you should have worked harder. There's some undeniable logic in his position, primarily his criticism of the American education system, but I have to believe there's some way we can soften the blow. Most free-market economists can't refute the crisis here; an economy simply can't survive mass unemployment coupled with the drastic and erratic heaves of an emerging global market. There must be a way to help guide our economy through the inevitable. He makes many fascinating points about the way the global economy works and what many visionaries are doing to drive progress, but again, it's only the positive half. Most are Indian entrepreneurs who've discovered yet another thing that can be done in India for 1/6th the cost, but many are independent journalist bloggers, open-source techno geeks, and other such enterprising people whose efforts actually empower individuals instead of corporations. All these people are flattening the world with little or no personal financial gain, which is a really cool development. But just two chapters earlier, though, he talks about how programming and journalism jobs are being outsourced, so I'm not sure how much longer Friedman thinks they'll be able to perform these pro bono tasks for the good of humanity when their day jobs are moved 8,000 miles away. The problem with this book is that he's writing from the victory table rubbing shoulders with CEO's and successful entrepreneurs, all the while missing the bigger picture. As Ayn Rand was prone to do, Friedman likes to suggest that it's rugged individuals, (now with laptops and Blackberrys instead of Rand's hardhats and forklifts), that are guiding the economy and cheaply providing the products we're all allegedly clamoring for -making the world better. It's those that get in the way of these capitalist visionaries that are truly the enemies of us all. The problem with both their arguments is that they assume that these rugged champions of industry are always wholly moral, omniscient, legitimately talented, selfless, and foremost benevolent in their influence. They also assume that it would never be a moral, selfless, and dedicated worker whose decent living wage could be in the champion's way. I don't expect Freidman to focus his book on these more negative aspects, but to ignore them entirely is not only academically immoral -it's socially irresponsible. He, a man with an incredible intellect and worldly experience, speaks of globalization with the seeming naiveté of a child. The book is presented as if he, as an unbiased observer, set out to view globalization in all forms, and that everything he came back with was modern, glowing, and smiling, despite the innumerable reports of outsourced industrial squalor seen elsewhere. The only explanation I have for the intellectual disconnect is that his "discovery" of world flattening is not a curious and unbiased venture into new world capitalism as he makes it appear, but instead a meticulous, thought-out, and purposeful treatise. He's making a case for global free market capitalism to the masses. It's a pitch. This is a problem. He presents the book as a quest to find out the truth, but reports back only one side of things. Too many people will read this book and believe that's the way things are, just because the esteemed Thomas Friedman said so and presented it with such child-like awe, as though the reader himself/herself would surely have the same experience if such a quest were tried. Friedman's eagerness to dive headfirst into this new world is disturbing. His plan for facing this crisis is simply rolling up our sleeves and working harder in math and science, but I don't think it's quite that simple. In a way, it's like telling the paper clip bender to just go faster to beat out the new machine. You can't demand that. Remember instead that after the paper clip bender job is eliminated, a new job opens up repairing paper clip bending machines, and those are the kinds of jobs we should be seeking/creating -the next big thing -not burying ourselves in math homework to beat the outsourcing behemoth. These new jobs, I think, will arise from what America actually does pretty well: things like political debate, activism, innovation, literature, journalism, arts and entertainment. Because of our Constitution and high standard of living, these are arenas -unlike manufacturing, software and numbers-crunching -where we actually have an advantage over the rest of the world. Ironically, ten years from now we might find that cultural fields in theatre and the arts remain in demand while engineering positions are all completely outsourced. Maybe engineering will soon be a field your parents call a "dead-end major." We as a people need to do what we can to soften the blow of globalization, both here and abroad. Institute American workplace standards internationally, promote greater education and decrease drop-out rates, seek out new and innovative areas of industry, and invest wisely in companies whose actions achieve a high moral standard. Because just as sure as cars made horses obsolete and the industrial revolution made redundant many manufacturing positions, globalization will indisputably eliminate the need for millions of American workers. This is a revolution far beyond the industrial revolution of the last century, creating an entirely new world turned upside down. Most of us, though, are not dancing on skyscrapers like Friedman; we are the ones picking flower petals out of our hair. Want to help Matt make the world shaped like a huge Twinkie? E-mail him at m.cohlmia@gmail.com.