Stegar's 5 Claims of Market Globalism
Claim #1. Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets.
In this sentence liberalization means the freedom to export to and import from other nations. Liberalization however only applies to those who have the access to foreign markets and foreign goods. While we all but foreign goods, many of us cannot market our goods internationally as individuals. We are more successful at this if we work for organizations that do trade globally. Ironically, the global integration resulting in cheaper goods in our domestic market has put many of our friends and neighbors out of work.
There are a couple if not more negative possibilities. At the end of Chapter 1, Friedman states, " And that is while the great challenge of our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people but also do not leave them behind. " The change to global market integration has benefitted the corporations and individuals who are able to quickly adapt to the moving target of international supply and demand. Those who are not able to adapt are left behind. As has been remarked on multiple times, this is the issue that faces many of the textile and furniture workers in this area. They have been left behind and we need to figure out a way to catch them up. Friedman talks about freeing up resources for greater things. That may be the case in theory, however in practice, it is very difficult for those disenfranchised workers with only high school diplomas. My other fear is that those who at at liberty to exchange goods on the global marketplace do not create monopolies that deprive the rest of us of the benefits of the global marketplace. Friedman quotes David Rothkopf, a former Department of Commerce official about who is going to benefit from and who is going to regulate and who is going to tax the new global organizationas and integrated international workers. Perhaps we are moving to societies organized around international corporations as opposed to countries contained within national borders?

Claim #2. Globalization is inevitable and irreversible. Definitely. There is no doubt that globalization has been going on since people first went in search of food. What is different about this globalization according to Friedman is that it is so quick. According to Friedman the flattening is faster because of technology, "If the prospect of this flattening - and all the pressure, dislocations, and opportunities accompanying it - causes you unease about the future, you are neither alone nor wrong. Whenever civilization has gone through one of these disruptive, dislocating technological revolutions - like Gutenberg's introduction of the printing press - the whole world changed in profound ways. But there is something about the flattening of the world that is going to be qualitatively different from other such profound changes: the speed and breadth with which it is taking hold. The introduction of printing happened over a period of decades and for a long time affected only a relatively small part of the planet. Same with the Industrial Revolution. This flattening prcess is happening at warp speed and directly and indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once. The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the more likely is the potential for disruption, as opposed to an orderly transfer of power from the old winners to the new winners."
I'm not sure when there has ever been an orderly transfer of power from the old winners to the new. I think that may be why we have so many wars. Revolts against monarchies and religious powers have never been peaceful. This change will not be peaceful. Maybe that is what terrorism is, the disruption that accompanies this change. When political leaders revolted against religious leaders and colonies against imperialists, they were able to do so on the basis of physical borders that marked territorial power. Now, those borders are impractical to attack with traditional military methods. The twin towers were symbols of the global marketplace and its hard to attack a company with an army. It is much easier to attack the global marketplace through terrorism in the market buildings.

Claim #3. Nobody is in charge of globalization. I would have to agree with this statement. However, there are people that are better at recognizing and harnessing flobal potential than others. Friedman provides a quote from Glenn Reynolds, "Like many facets of the topic you're talking about in your book, there are good and bad aspects of the development. The splintering of media makes for a lot of incoherence or selective cognition (look at our country's polarization), but it also decentralizes power and provides a better guarantee that the complete truth is out there....somewhere... in pieces." It is out there and like the image of the blind men and the elephant, we only see part of it at a time. We can barely predict what our own actions will be, now we have to hedge our bets on what will happen globally. We like to know what is happening and we like predictable futures. That's not the case currently. There are too many changes include the creation of new jobs and the loss of old ones as well as the capacity for instantly disseminated information both good and bad. While we can theoretically control our own response to change, we still don't have a good handle on the change process. The analogy of the puzzle is perfect: There is a grand design and we each have a piece. We just need to figure out how to put them together.

Claim #4: Globalization benefits everyone. Ideally, this will be the case. In the short-term there will be some casualites of lost jobs and opportunities. There is the current existence of tremedous exploitation of weaker individuals and countries. Friedman offers a quote from Glocer, " But it's time to think about the opportunity as well as the pain, just as it's time to think about the obligations of off-shoring as well as the opportunities....Every person, just as every corporation, must tend to his or her own economic destiny, just as our parents and grandparents in the mills, shoe shops and factories did." We have to do this or we will become the exploited or more exploited depending on your personal viewpoint. While we do have cheaper products from places like Walmart that can make huge deals and apply tremendous pressure to domestic and foreign producers to get their goods into Walmart, we have to have jobs that will allow us to buy these products. Ultimately, it is in the interest of powerful corporations to have markets that will bear high enough prices for profit. The question is what is the formula? What employment do people need to pay the prices for the goods we make as cheaply as we can so that we can get the most profit we can? The key ingredients for corporations are profit and market. Without jobs there is no market. Morally, there is another question: What are the responsibilities of the global corporate citizen to the individual worker? If poverty wages are the norm for workers in one country is it moral for the corporation to pay those wages even if it know that it is very difficult to survive on those wages. Or, if the goods made by those workers is sold to middle income Americans who will pay enough for the goods to bring in a good profit, is the corporation's responsibility to its stockholders.
Friedman does make an intriguing claim, that the outsourcing to India has increased demand for American good, "This explains why, although the Untied States has lost some service jobs to India in recent years, total exports from American-based companies - merchandise and services - to India have grownfrom $2.5 billion in 1990 to $5 billion in 2003. So even with the outsourcing of some service jobs from the United States to India, India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services. What goes around, comes around."
The implication is that the Indian workers are being paid enough to purchase American products that they would have been unable to purchase otherwise. The question remaining for the displaced worker is where does he or she fit in his or her particular skill set/puzzle piece?

Claim #5 Globalization furthers the spread on democracy. Maybe. Democracy is not necessarily a universal goal. Westerners seem to believe this fallacy that everyone is pining away for democracy. That's not the case. Perhaps we use our faith in this fallacy to justify our military actions in different parts of the world that are not democratic. Rumor that we became involved in Iraq because of oil may have basis in fact. Maybe oil companies did co-opt our post 911 uber-patriotism to engage in a war that would bring in huge profits. Perhaps they hoped we wouldn't notice with the distraction of weapons of mass destruction and the clarion call to spread democracy. Friedman focuses primarily on these corporate connections. The economic conditions made possible by democracy may be its undoing. Friedman writes, " Well, the real information revolution is about to begin. I call this new phase Globalization 3.0 because it followed Globalization 2.0, but I think this new era of globalization will prove to be such a difference of degree that it will be seen, in time, as a difference in kind. That is why I introduced the idea that the world has gone from round to flat. Everywhere you turn, hierarchies are being challenged from below or transforming themselves from top-down structures into more horizontal and collaborative ones." Is one of those hierarchies that will be challenged American Democracy? Is economics going to pull past politics as the dominant force of social organization and allegiance? Currentlly, lobbyists for big corporations have a lot of power in democratic elections. Will the will of big oil and Walmart determine the future of globalization? Would that necessarily be a bad thing?