TWIF: Getting Serious

A little less entertaining, more serious, analysis of Friedman’s book:

A notion that has become popular among U.S. media is the internet is a source of informational anarchy, lowering the cost of education and diminishing comparative advantages.  According to Friedman, if the world continues on this trend, the U.S. will lose its international supremacy, while developing countries, such as China and India, will strive to replace it.  Friedman argues that elements of globalization, especially information technology, will be the primary factor in determining future power distribution.  However, Friedman’s method of analysis is from a narrow perspective, which causes him to reach many inaccurate conclusions.  Through a more comprehensive review of current international system, it is more accurate to conclude that the future international economy will be shaped more by shifting demographics and changing economic models, than technological trends.  By examining the most current trends of multispeed economic growths, growing regional trading patterns, shifting demographics and weakening global institutions, I find predictions far different than Friedman’s. 

The future international system cannot only be defined by globalization and technology.  Recently, the National Intelligence Council released an analysis of possible factors that will likely shape the next 15 years.  Among those factors are demography, globalization, the rise of new powers, the decay of international institutions, climate change and the geopolitics of energy.  Many columnists have been predicting for years that information technology will be a harbinger of international cohesion and global institutions.  To so easily proclaim now that it will be the primary driving force for international change, while ignoring these many other factors, can be explained by Richards Heuer’s observation “we tend to perceive what we expect to perceive.”  It seems that Friedman and his advocates would love their prophecies to be fulfilled.

Many of the developing world’s economies are growing at vastly faster rates than the developed world, but some countries are about to hit a wall.  China is the largest example of this, flaunting a rapid three-decade long growth spurt driven by an export led economy.  The media has published reports forecasting the impending shift in power from west to east.  However, the current economic crisis has demonstrated the shortcomings of Chinese and other East Asian economic strategies.  The decrease in western consumption, combined with the recent reduction in birthrate, will force countries like China to restructure their economy to a more sustainable model that focuses internally.  Friedman says the U.S. must be adaptable to compete with these rising countries.  I feel our economy enables us to be far more adaptable than countries like China.

Focusing on a single technological trend leads to a narrow analytical perspective, closing the mind to implications of other classical factors. Developed nations will have to resort to other sources of labor to supplement the Asian labor shortage.  From a U.S. perspective, Mexico will most likely become a major player through regional trade agreements and as a supplemental immigrant workforce, forcing the U.S to deal with the large drug cartels that currently plague the country.  Europe must deal with struggling economies, bank bailouts and possibly austerity programs, with the smaller countries counting on an improving U.S. economy to truly recover.  This reliance on U.S. economy, the restructuring of Asian economies, and shifting immigration patterns demonstrates a vastly different international model than the theories of Thomas Friedman and other cyber-theorists.