|
|
|
|
 |
BusinessWeek: April 26, 1999 |
|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads |
|
Books
The Growing Pains of Globalization
Understanding Globalization By Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus & Giroux 394pp $27.50 Just what is globalization--that abstruse, abstract set of developments now on the minds of everyone from politicians to executives to plant-floor leaders? Many of these people see global economic integration as a malignant force that is crushing millions of workers' aspirations while exacerbating inequality, unemployment, insecurity, and instability. Others argue that today's global economy is on the way to delivering profound worldwide prosperity. The proponents say that the information revolution is creating strong links between nations, peoples, and companies, even as the embrace of freer markets is fueling enormous increases in international commerce and encouraging democracy. Both the pessimistic and optimistic visions of the New World Order seem to attract fierce advocates who all too easily dismiss the other group's concerns. That's not the case with the author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Yes, Thomas Friedman, the peripatetic foreign-affairs columnist of The New York Times since 1995, loudly applauds the triumph of global capitalism and the unprecedented wealth it has produced in the past decade. But he also recognizes the growing pains and human costs that globalization creates. And at times, he's ambivalent about what may be lost during this era of creative destruction. Friedman is a card-carrying global optimist, and he excels when analyzing how a new international system is replacing the old cold-war system. His book contains a stinging rebuke to protectionists, isolationists, and others who want to stop the process of globalization for their own benefit--and to the detriment of most of the populace. But like most other observers, Friedman has difficulty knitting together all of globalization's complex economic, political, cultural, and technological strands. For example, his gloomy chapter on rising income inequality doesn't mesh with his earlier upbeat musings on the link between free-market capitalism and improving living standards. But so what? The global economy is still evolving, and Friedman's work in progress is a timely read. His position at The New York Times gives Friedman a wonderful perch from which to observe the global economy's evolution. (He has also been the newspaper's Middle East correspondent and its diplomatic correspondent.) He has interviewed numerous government and business leaders and traveled far and wide, from tiny Chinese hamlets to the rain forest in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia. The Lexus and the Olive Tree contains a few too many observations drawn from interviews with all-powerful, all-knowing sources or from what the author has seen out of a taxi window. But one must admire his effort to provide the anecdote or metaphor that will make an abstract concept concrete. For instance, the brilliant social philosopher Jane Jacobs has called the battle between the new and the old--between the future and the past--the fundamental divide in any economy. Here's how Friedman captures the clash between the human drive for prosperity and modernization vs. the pull of relationships and community. In 1992, he visited the Lexus luxury-car factory outside Toyota City in Japan. Back then, 66 humans and 310 robots were making 300 sedans a day. Then, while Friedman was riding on the bullet train back to Tokyo, he read an article about the latest furor between the Arabs and Israelis. "It struck me then that the Lexus and the olive tree were actually pretty good symbols of this post-cold-war era: Half the world seemed to be emerging from the cold war intent on building a better Lexus, dedicated to modernizing, streamlining, and privatizing their economies in order to thrive in the system of globalization. And half the world--sometimes half the same country, sometimes half the same person--was still caught up in the fight over who owns which olive tree." Much of Friedman's analysis covers familiar territory but covers it well--somewhat reminiscent of the accounts of well-educated, 19th century European travelers who toured the New World. The book explores how globalization is built on three fundamental changes: the spread of technology, the rise of the individual investor, and the democratization of information. Each factor informs and reinforces the turbocharged capitalism of today. Any nation, company, or people desiring to grow needs to embrace the rules of free-market capitalism. Opt out? Go ahead, says Friedman, but you'll end up with the living standards of a North Korea. Like many other commentators, Friedman has been struck by how today's global economy has picked up where the 19th century global economy left off, just before a series of gross political miscalculations led to two world wars and the Great Depression. Friedman makes a convincing case that this time around, the forces of integration are more powerful than they were back then. True, globalization does not end geopolitics or prevent savage conflicts such as the war in Kosovo and tribal genocide in Rwanda. Nevertheless, the spread of global commerce is a powerful constraint. "It increases the incentives for not making war and increases the costs of going to war in more ways than in any previous era in modern history," he writes. On the eve of the 21st century, the signs of a great transformation in world history are all around us. Chinese capitalists. Russian entrepreneurs. Internet pioneers. Democracy in Latin America. All of us are groping to understand what's going on. For a useful first pass on history, consult Thomas Friedman. Return to top | |
|
|
|
  Return to top Too Private? THE LIMITS OF PRIVACY By Amitai Etzioni Basic Books 280pp $25 In March, a software expert revealed that documents created using Microsoft Corp.'s Office software contained serial numbers allowing them to be traced to the machine on which they were created. When privacy advocates yelped, Microsoft quickly released software to let people expunge the numbers from their documents. But the story didn't end there. A few weeks later, the same tracking system helped hunt down a New Jersey man suspected of unleashing a nasty computer virus named Melissa. Suddenly, the ability to trace files back to their creators didn't seem entirely bad. Maybe, some people felt, privacy has its limits. That is the argument of The Limits of Privacy, a new book by Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University. Etzioni has often written about the need to strike a balance between individual rights and social responsibilities, and he does so again here. His contention, in short: "Although we cherish privacy in a free society, we also value other goods. Hence, we must address the moral, legal, and social issues that arise when serving the common good entails violating privacy." Etzioni spells out his "communitarian" philosophy in chapters on five hotly contended issues: mandatory testing of infants for HIV, which some say amounts to an invasion of the mother's privacy; the trade-off between sex offenders' privacy and children's safety; the government's wish to be able to decipher encrypted messages; the virtues and vices of mandatory ID cards and gear such as fingerprint scanners; and, finally, individuals' ability to keep medical records private. Etzioni leans against privacy on all the issues except medical records. Here he concludes that invasion of medical-records privacy doesn't usually serve important social goals--and is mainly done by information-selling "privacy merchants." Etzioni argues that while the public is perhaps overly sensitive to governmental violations of privacy, its defenses against violations by companies are "surprisingly weak." He says privacy advocates are trapped in a paradox: "Although they fear Big Brother most, they need to lean on him to protect privacy better from Big Buck." While much of The Limits of Privacy is devoted to heavily footnoted policy debates, Etzioni rises from wonkery in the final chapter to place privacy in a broader context. In the communitarian spirit, he argues that societal norms are best enforced informally by friends, neighbors, and fellow members of voluntary associations. He says those people can't do their valuable busybody work if the legal walls of privacy are raised too high. Etzioni isn't the first to favor limits on privacy. Science-fiction writer David Brin did it more entertainingly last year in The Transparent Society. The difference is that Brin also argued for invading the privacy of government--putting police under surveillance, for example. Etzioni regards democratic government more as friend than foe. Whether you agree may depend on whether you share his communitarian spirit in the first place. Return to top  Return to top Slicing Up Apple INFINITE LOOP How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company, Went Insane By Michael S. Malone Currency/Doubleday 597pp $27.50 Over the past few years, there has been a steady stream of books explaining Apple Computer Inc.'s fall from grace. And while I never expected to tire of the company's remarkable soap opera, I didn't think I could force myself through another book-length account of it. Michael Malone's Infinite Loop proved me wrong--for much of the way, at least. Fact is, the first 250 pages of the book snapped me to attention. There, Malone provides insight into how two misfits--Apple chief Steven P. Jobs and technical wizard Stephen Wozniak--revolutionized not just computers but all of Corporate America. Having grown up in Silicon Valley at the same time as Jobs and Wozniak (Malone even claims to have found one of Jobs's homework assignments among his papers), the author is able to paint a superrealistic portrait of that environment. Malone's account also has a depth not often seen in business journalism--especially when it describes the complex attraction Apple has always held for society at large. Here's Malone's take on Jobs's evolution from an obnoxious, self-important kid into a high-tech superstar: "As the confused 1970s turned into the materialist 1980s, Jobs was becoming cool.... To the early baby boomers, he was the hippie who hadn't sold out.... To the late boomers, he was a proto-yuppie, sleek and predatory, still a kid but able to run with the Brahmins of Corporate America." Unfortunately, Malone's book has too much in common with Apple itself: It's most interesting when Jobs is around. So in the middle section of the book, covering the period of Jobs's 1985-97 absence, this 597-page effort steers dangerously close to being just another Apple tell-all. After debunking the legend of how Jobs created the Mac after a visit to Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center--Malone gives credit to former Apple staffer Jef Raskin and others--Malone seems to lose interest. That's not to say there's no drama in his account of the post-Jobsian era. As with past Apple chroniclers, Malone chooses his favorite villains. John Sculley, Jobs's buttoned-down successor, is particularly savaged for letting Apple slide into mediocrity while pathetically trying to prove himself a technical visionary by championing Apple's Newton handheld. But here the author too often resorts to a rushed narrative style--with much of the heavy lifting coming in the form of quotes from other Apple books, such as Mike Moritz' The Little Kingdom. He describes the period as "a sequence of minor events that seem to start nowhere, meander around and end up nowhere"--and his writing shows it. By the end, I had come to find Malone's free-and-easy approach to attribution disconcerting. He rarely names his sources, but seems to figure the reader will give him the benefit of the doubt. While the technique may have kept the narrative moving forward, it left me wondering whether I was really learning anything new. And with Apple's future suddenly looking more promising, that makes Infinite Loop feel like one too many literary walks around the block of Apple's sad recent history. Return to top  Return to top |
|
Copyright 1991-2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Notice |
