THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE

THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE: A CRITIQUE

Thomas Friedman's (2000) The Lexus and the Olive Tree is both important and predictable. It is important because it enlightens one by developing a context for the phenomenon of globalization that expands the narrower and more typical considerations of globalization as essentially an economic process. The broadened context within which Friedman (2003) casts globalization is international relations. Friedman (2003) characterizes globalization, not only as an international system, he characterizes globalization as

� the dominant international system at the end of the twentieth century replacing the Cold War system �. ("Introduction")

Globalization is an international system that influences (if not determines as Friedman (2003) states) relations between states, movements, organizations, and people. As is true of international systems of any character, globalization has its own structure and its own imperatives that allow the players to interact within the system. According to Friedman (2003), the important structural characteristics, imperatives, and rules (all of which are referred to as attributes in the book) include the following (Friedman, 2003):

� the globalization system � is not static, but a dynamic ongoing process: globalization involves the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states, and technologies to a degree never witnessed before in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations, and nation-states to reach

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the Olive Tree removes his work from the status of "great" but does not keep it from being an important contribution. Friedman's personally secure economic position within the world's strongest economy permeates his presentations in The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Within this context, he is similar to the current American President Bush, if not as outwardly abrasive. For Bush, it is the dictum: "you are either for us or you are against us". With Friedman (2003) in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, the implied dictum is that: "those who disagree with my interpretations are simply wrong". Friedman (2003) states, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that the current phenomenon of globalization is actually the second iteration of the process. Within this context, Friedman stated in The Lexus and the Olive Tree that � from the mid-1800s to the late 1900s the world experienced a similar era of globalization. If you compared the volumes of trade and capital flows across borders, relative to GNPs, and the flow of labor across borders, relative to populations, the period of globalization preceding World War I was quite similar to the one we are living through today. ("Introduction") In fact, there have been even earlier periods of globalization

Category: Economics - T