The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
From one of our most perceptive commentators and winner of the National Book Award, a comprehensive look at the new world of globalization, the international system that, more than anything else, is shaping world affairs today.As the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman has traveled the globe, interviewing people from all walks of contemporary life: Brazilian peasants in the Amazon rain forest, new entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Islamic students in Teheran, and the financial wizards on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.
Now Friedman has drawn on his years on the road to produce an engrossing and original look at globalization. Globalization, he argues, is not just a phenomenon and not just a passing trend. It is the international system that replaced the Cold War system; the new, well-greased, interconnected system: Globalization is the integration of capital, technology, and information across national borders, in a way that is creating a single global market and, to some degreee, a global village. Simply put, one can't possibly understand the morning news or one's own investments without some grasp of the system. Just one example: During the Cold War, we reached for the hot line between the White House and the Kremlin--a symbol that we were all divided but at least the two superpowers were in charge. In the era of globalization, we reach for the Internet--a symbol that we are all connected but nobody is totally in charge.
With vivid stories and a set of original terms and concepts, Friedman offers readers remarkable access to his unique understanding of this new world order, and shows us how to see this new system. He dramatizes the conflict of "the Lexus and the olive tree"--the tension between the globalization system and ancient forces of culture, geography, tradition, and community. He also details the powerful backlash that globalization produces among those who feel brutalized by it, and he spells out what we all need to do to keep the system in balance. Finding the proper balance between the Lexus and the olive tree is the great drama of he globalization era, and the ultimate theme of Friedman's challenging, provocative book--essential reading for all who care about how the world really works.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
One day in 1992, Thomas Friedman toured a Lexus factory in Japan and marveled at the robots that put the luxury cars together. That evening, as he ate sushi on a Japanese bullet train, he read a story about yet another Middle East squabble between Palestinians and Israelis. And it hit him: Half the world was lusting after those Lexuses, or at least the brilliant technology that made them possible, and the other half was fighting over who owned which olive tree.
Friedman, the well-traveled New York Times foreign-affairs columnist, peppers The Lexus and the Olive Tree with stories that illustrate his central theme: that globalization--the Lexus--is the central organizing principle of the post-cold war world, even though many individuals and nations resist by holding onto what has traditionally mattered to them--the olive tree.
Problem is, few of us understand what exactly globalization means. As Friedman sees it, the concept, at first glance, is all about American hegemony, about Disneyfication of all corners of the earth. But the reality, thank goodness, is far more complex than that, involving international relations, global markets, and the rise of the power of individuals (Bill Gates, Osama Bin Laden) relative to the power of nations.
No one knows how all this will shake out, but The Lexus and the Olive Tree is as good an overview of this sometimes brave, sometimes fearful new world as you'll find. --Lou Schuler
From Kirkus Reviews
A brilliant guidebook to the new world of ``globalization'' by Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist Friedman (From Beirut to Jerusalem, 1988). Like El Nio, globalization is blamed for anything and everything, but few understand just what it really is. In simplest terms, Friedman defines globalization as the world integration of finance markets, nation states, and technologies within a free- market capitalism on a scale never before experienced. Driving it all is what he calls the Electronic Herd, the faceless buyers and sellers of stocks, bonds, and currencies, and multinational corporations investing wherever and whenever the best opportunity presents itself. It is a pitiless systemrichly rewarding winners, harshly punishing losersbut contradictory as well. For nations and individuals willing to take the risk, globalization offers untold opportunity, yet in the process, as the Electronic Herd scavenges the world like locusts in the search for profit, globalization threatens to destroy both cultural heterogeneity and environmental diversity. The human drive for enrichment (the Lexus) confronts the human need for identity and community (the olive tree). The success of globalization, Friedman contends, depends on how well these goals can be satisfied at one and the same time. He believes they can be, but dangers abound. If nation states sacrifice too much of their identity to the dictates of the Electronic Herd, a backlash, a nihilistic rejection of globalization, can occur. If nation states ignore these dictates, they face impoverishment; there simply is no other game in town. Friedmans discussion is wonderfully accessible, clarifying the complex with enlightening stories that simplify but are never simplistic. There are flaws, to be sure. He is perhaps overly optimistic on the ability of the market forces of globalization to correct their own excesses, such as environmental degradation. Overall, though, he avoids the Panglossian overtones that mar so much of the literature on globalization. Artful and opinionated, complex and cantankerous; simply the best book yet written on globalization. (First printing 100,000) (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
National Bestseller
#1 New York Times Business Bestseller
"A brilliant guide to the here and now."--The New York Times Book Review
"An owner's manual for a globalized world."--USA Today
"A spirited and imaginative exploration of our new order of economic globalization.... Not only clear but interesting, not only interesting but necessary to us--first-rate."
--The New York Times
"A wellspring of economic common sense that will innoculate its readers against the 'globaloney' so prevalent in popular discussions of the subject.... Readers in search of a window onto the problems of the cyberspace-driven 'virtual world economy' of the twenty-first century are unlikely to find a better place to start."--Foreign Affairs
"This is an important book; not since Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital has a volume come along that so well explains the technical and financial ether we are all swimming through.... There is hardly a page in the book without an underlineable passage."--Salon
"All of us are groping to understand what's going on. For a useful first pass on history, consult Thomas Friedman."--Business Week
"Required reading for anyone who still thinks of the Internet as little more than a gimmick for computer nerds--deftly accomplishes the impressive task of encapsulating the complex economic, cultural, and environmental challenges of globalization with the sort of hindsight that future historians will bring to bear upon the subject."--The Christian Science Monitor -- Review
Customer Reviews
Great and insightful when first written, but feels dated today
I admire Friedman's intellect, his decades of hands-on, in-the-trenches reporting all over the world (and especially in the Mideast). And he writes so clearly, colorfully and with energy. When this was first written, it was a novel perspective on what was happening in globalization of trade, communications, entertainment, etc.
The updates to the book, to make it relevant to our post-9/11 world, are helpful but they feel like an afterthought. The main meat of the book is still largely true but the occasional tone of gee-whiz enthusiasm about the internet, global trade deals etc. seems pretty dated to me now.
Pseudo-Economics and Market Fundamentalism
I read part of this book for a Globalization class I was taking, plus a few chapters from a different book "Globalization and Its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. I initially liked what I read from Friedman. It seemed positive and interesting in comparison to Stiglitz (which focused on IMF economic policies and was VERY angry). However, upon reading the whole Stiglitz book and then going back to Friedman, I found Friedman to be poorly educated in economics and a waste of my time. It is indeed a cheerleader book for Globalization and has so many holes in it you can drive a car through.
Friedman is a market fundamentalist with an agenda, which becomes very clear after reading a REAL book on economics. He embraces this "golden straightjacket" (or restrictions that globalization puts on an economy) as inevitable and advocates a rapid transition to free-market systems with abandonment of old systems. He also favors excessive deregulation of the economy and wants government to completely relinquish control. The success of this strategy isn't backed by any evidence. It's only Friedman's theory. For instance, he goes into great detail about the hardships that this golden straitjacket puts on government, the population and all the entrenched interests... but never proves with evidence that the countries that put it on are better off than countries that don't. The fact is, countries DON'T have to follow this golden straitjacket model. Southeast Asia in particular... with all the "crony" capitalism that Friedman complains lingered on for decades, was successful before the 1997 market crisis specifically because of this crony capitalism. They didn't follow the IMF, Wall Street, and the electronic herd who were all clamoring for them to immediately open up their markets and push down barriers and completely eliminate government interference in the economy. They kept those barriers up, built up their own businesses and industries, and when those industries were ready to compete in the global market, they slowly reduced trade barriers and integrated themselves into the global economy. This is the correct way to approach globalization, not the stupid way Friedman and the IMF and Wall Street lobbyists advocate (ensuring US companies dominate ALL competition in the developing world).
I'll give another example of why Friedman is wrong. Look at Russia. Russia's transition from communism to capitalism was guided by the IMF and the US Treasury Department. It was one of the most radical transformations of an economy in the history of mankind and under Friedman's theory, it should have been an enormous success because "the quicker you adopt the golden straitjacket, the better". WRONG. They transitioned to free markets so quick that it was devoid of competition. There was no regulatory structure to compete fairly. Banks didn't operate well. Businesses were sold to well-connected, corrupt bureaucrats for next to nothing (who proceeded to strip the businesses of their assets and put most of the profits in foreign bank accounts). Corrupt government leaders shared in these profits at the expense of the state's wealth. The leaders further raided funds by taking out massive loans from international banks, the IMF and the US government at high interest rates and diverted much of the money into their bank accounts. Inflation ran wild for awhile and many people lost their life savings and retirement as a result. Exchange rates were kept artificially high which prevented exports. Crime and mafia control spread everywhere. People in abject poverty become commonplace (from ~2% of the population living under $2 a day under communism....... to after the market failure ~25% of the population under $2 a day and ~40% of the population under $4 a day. GDP per Capita went DOWN so people were poorer with capitalism than they were under communism). It was altogether complete chaos and an economic disaster.
Compare this with China, who also moved from Communism to Capitalism but they started in the 70's and they did it much slower and much more carefully. Through protectionist barriers, they built up their own industries, significantly reduced poverty, became a major world economy and provided many of the amenities that first world economies have. While they aren't completely free-market yet, they are doing it very well and completely ignoring Thomas Friedman's "Golden Straitjacket".
With that said, there are some good things about Thomas Friedman's book. First off, he explains a very popular... but failed... ideology very well. There is significant support for it in IMF, Wall Street and the Treasury Department and its important to understand. Secondly, he explains Capital Markets (or what he calls "short horned cattle") far better than my other book does. Capital Markets, or investment in currency, is a hard concept to understand and Friedman makes a very good effort at explaining it.
Heavy
Had some good ideas but pretty heavy reading. Not for the short attention span person.
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