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A very warm welcome to Thomas L. Friedman

At long last, after years of flirtatiously standing on the sidelines of the sustainability debate, he has now got properly stuck in with his new book Hot, Flat & Crowded. Great title: seriously good read.

Friedman has always been a seriously good author. Both "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," and "The World is Flat" became best-sellers all around the world. But they drove me absolutely bonkers. Full of references to some of the problems associated with globalisation, including climate change, but zero understanding that this particular model of globalisation, in praise of which he has spilled millions of words, couldn’t possibly be sustained over time. Such persuasive advocacy so frustratingly missing the mark.

But "Hot, Flat & Crowded" is bang on the mark. Totally authoritative analysis as to why business-as-usual capitalism is dead in the water, coupled with a very upbeat account of the kind of "green industrial revolution" that is now available to us (Gordon Brown should love it!) and there is nothing like a guru-come-lately to go way over the top in terms of born-again enthusiasm.

I even managed to overcome my irritation at his constant references to "green" no longer being a "niche", as if it is all suddenly mainstream because he is now attending to it. Actually, dear Thomas, Teddy Goldsmith’s "Blueprint for Survival" in 1968 was saying exactly what "Hot, Flat & Crowded" is saying now, just as seriously, just as penetratingly. Nothing "niche" about it. It was simply that an awful lot of apparently very intelligent people just didn’t get it forty years ago.

Friedman’s other, rather enduring blindspot is that he believes the United States will now step up to the plate and lead the rest of the world into an ultra-low-carbon, totally sustainable future. Really! No sign of that I’m afraid, in the campaign speeches of either John McCain or Barack Obama.

This splendid chauvinism leads him off in some strange directions. One of the best sections in the book is about China, and the way China is starting to address very seriously many of its environmental challenges, particularly in terms of massive new investments in environmental technologies. But even when he looks at that, Friedman still believes it won’t really come to anything unless the United States blinks first, and takes the lead. "If America decisively embarked on building a Clean Energy System and the technologies to drive it, China would have no choice but to move decisively in the same direction."

I think that’s rubbish. In my opinion, it is far more likely that China will just get on and do it, regardless of what’s happening in the US – simply because the risks to China from climate change are far more serious. There’s an interesting thought: sustainability as another nail in the coffin of US ascendency!

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on October 2, 2008 10:30 AM |

Comments (1)

I agree with you completely on this point - that there are far better intellectuals who have written on themes that Friedman has - Globalization and Climate change - in a far more intellectual manner, with penetrating arguments and anything but a simplistic solution for such complex problems, like Friedman offers.

For example, I would much rather hear Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank) on globalization. He said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization.

Similarly, Harvard Professor, Pankaj Ghemawat's book, "Redefining Global Strategy," is more academically inclined. He argues that the world is, at best, only semi-globalized. His argument being that Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic aspects of a nation come in the way of total globalization from taking place and cites examples of the same.

There is also an other small, but interesting book, by Aronica and Ramdoo, "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller," which offers a counterperspective to Friedman's theory on globalization.

Interestingly enough, the book written about two years back, discusses in the chapter, "Debt and Financialization of America," the debt ridden American society, deregulated financial institutions, mortgage crisis and other related issues, with clear pointers to the economic crisis gripping US today.

It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman's book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn't a single table or data footnote in Friedman's entire book.

You may want to see www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman's
"The World is Flat".

Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html

There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html

Posted by concerned citizen | October 12, 2008 7:00 PM

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