Developments in World Economy: Globalization and Technology

This essay delves into the developments of the world economy, primarily focusing on Thomas Friedman's concept of a 'flattening world' and the impact of globalization and technological advancements. The essay examines the evolution of globalization through different phases, highlighting the roles of key factors such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the internet, and the emergence of various software standards. It explores the ten flatteners identified by Friedman, including outsourcing, offshoring, supply chaining, insourcing, and informing, and discusses their implications on global competition and economic dependency. The essay also touches upon the positive and negative aspects of a flattened world, such as increased opportunities for collaboration and the potential for new threats like terrorism. Furthermore, it references various sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the forces reshaping the world economy and promoting unified prosperity.

Development in World Economy
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Running head: DEVELOPMENTS OF WORLD ECONOMY
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DEVELOPMENTS OF WORLD ECONOMY
Thomas L. Friedman in his book “ The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty- first
Century” discussed the technological developments that have given rise to more leveled
world due to augmentation of competition that has made global economy more flatten. This
flatten economic ground has created more opportunities for developing and under privileged
nations through rise of knowledge and prosperity thus resulting the flattening world to
establish competition with that of US and other super powers of world. Example advances in
technology and communication that was earlier a strength of developed nations has now been
acquired and pervaded by nations like India and China thus enabling them as more
economically competing. This leveling or flattening effect is very discerning as it is has
given way for more ingression and opportunities and as per Friedman’s opinion the flattening
ramification is deeper comparatively in extension to the Industrial revolution. According to
Josan (2012) the flat world has created outsourcing jobs from US to other nations thus
distributing more employment opportunities from US to an overseas nations which helps to
enhance that nations economic condition as well as living standards thus eventually creating a
demand for US goods and services. In Freidman’s perspective this is an optimistic
development that would extend to refinement and growth until the world economies become
lateral or a flat line. As such according to Perelman (2015) in Friedman’s opinion a flat world
means that the world is moving towards a collaboration path where each nation will be
economically relying on one another and there will be more networking and correspondence
between different nations across the world. This situation will give way to more opportunities
as well as few threats such as the worst risk that can be expected in flatten world would be
revengeful nuclear terrorism incidences the impact of which would be to form impediments
to shared information and as such make a return to more isolationist channels. Contrary there
are even mutual gains driven with flatten world that are more optimistic and beneficial for
everyone such as advances in communication and connection in contrast to negative
outcomes of flat world through terrorism that would be reciprocally damaging for everyone
(Jesuit & Sych 2012).
Moreover according to Li & Zhou (2015) in flat world the advances in technology and
communications has united the world and brought it closer where anytime and from
anywhere people and enterprises irrespective of the part of the world they are can connect
and correspond through video conferences. As such the realization of world is flat has made
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the ground for more global and mature competition based on flattening aspects. In his book
Friedman also mentioned the history of globalization and identified its phases of evolution.
The first phase of globalization was between 1492-1800 and during this time trade
connections began to be established amid new world and old world. Then during 1800-2000
there was phase of globalization 2.0 where the liberal forces led to global unification of
various transnational enterprises across the world. According to Nuno (2015) this was the
period where global market was formed. Further with augmentation of globalization 3.0 the
world will continue to contract and become more flatten but it will be different from earlier
span which Friedman identified would be perhaps because the world will become
decreasingly a Western operated process.
Further Friedman in his book the world is flat has discussed the forces that have resulted into
flattened world. The first flattener being the fall of Berlin wall which reflected the end of
Cold war as well as witnessed the rise of capability for nations, enterprises and people to
unite the economic channels through capitalism which was an important symbol of events.
The world is no more divided into communist and capitalist and there is a rise in economic
dependency between nations that has allowed correspondence and trade for more prosperity.
Also with advances in technology several people have got options to become familiar with
information sharing networks like computers which has united the world with fastest and
convenient access to information which Friedman stated to be the period of New Age of
Creativity.
The second flattener has close association with Netscape as it got public and now with help of
this various new platform like internet and world wide web has been possible. Each
individual can use these platforms to interact with others from any part of the world and as
such the world has become considerably smaller as internet has reduced any kind of physical
boundaries (Kurecic & Kampmark 2016). Also other communication means like HTML,
SMTP for email and FTP for file transfer has enhanced the capability of people from across
every section of world and life to interact and transfer information through long distances
with more ease and promptness.
The third flattener is prevalence of large range of software standards that has permitted
people to do more with help of computers and this has capacitated nations and enterprises to
collaborate closely on different works. As such intervention like IP, XML, HTTP has made
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people to receive information and data from any part of world through computers. These
three flatteners are foundation for next six flatteners.
The fourth flattener is capability to upload information and content from computer to shared
network which has enabled everyone to become a contributor or creator for new information
with help of open software like blogs and YouTube. As such more enterprises have become
capable to utilize online experience from online communities to their benefits and with this
intervention has come some risks which are not positive such as information that is created
can be damaging as no one knows if the information that is uploaded is true or fake which
can lead to disruptions (Service 2012). The fifth flattener is outsourcing where several
enterprises have started sub-contracting parts of their operations to third part providers so as
to be more cost effective and enhance their effectiveness. With outsourcing better platform to
save cost can be augmented.
The sixth flattener is offshoring where an enterprise shifts their manufacturing unit from one
nation to other due to availability of more labor, cheap resources, low taxes and low health
care spending’s on resources. All these components have resulted to low manufacturing cost
and rise in profit margin. The seventh flattener is supply chaining where enterprises utilize
this to enhance their correspondence between suppliers to retailers and ultimately to
consumers with use of advanced technology which has enabled better promotion of supply
chaining effectiveness with practically no barrier between consumers and producers. The
eighth flattener is insourcing where enterprises recruit other firms to manage their supply
chain as such insourcing has flatten the world as it has allowed small firms to procure similar
capacities as like global firms thus removing the boundaries between enterprises and
developing a standardized business framework for firms across the world.
The ninth flattener is informing where easy access to obtain information is promoted through
different search engines that are offered in world wide web like Google, Yahoo etc which has
empowered people to browse information as per their specific needs and has put lot of power
into individual’s hand where they can correspond, discuss and investigate about everything
from anywhere and with anyone through click of mouse. The tenth flattener is steroids and as
per Friedman it consist of all dimension that would help to contribute to rest of flatteners so
as to ensure they perform better (Kurecic & Kampmark 2016). There are three form of
steroids i.e. digital steroid that includes dynamic changes in computer technology. Then other
is mobile steroid that has enabled people to work from anywhere through wireless internet
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access and next is personal steroid that surrounds technology interventions that are low cost
and small enough to be used by everyone.
Hence these flatteners have united the world and reinforced shift of world economy and
unified prosperity.
References
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Kurecic, P., & Kampmark, B. (2016). A MULTIFARIOUS, MULTIFACETED APPROACH
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