Critique of Thomas Friedman's Article It's a Flat World, After All Term Paper

Critique of Thomas Friedman's Article It's a Flat World, After All - Term Paper Example The author started the article with the explanation of the various globalisation eras. According to the author, globalization has been categorized into three phases. The first period of globalization was from 1492 to 1800. During this period, globalization of world resources helped in shrinking the world from large to medium size (Headrick, 2000). The second phase of globalization was from 1800 to 2000 where the world shrunk from medium to small, as a result of globalization of labour and market forces. The third phase of globalization which started from 2000 has seen a drastic shift in the driving forces. It is a comprehensive mix where not only the big players but smaller enterprises are also influencing the globalisation process (Webster, 2005). Most of the parts of first and second globalisations were motivated by American and European economies and countries. But in case of third globalisation phase, it is mostly influenced by individuals and diversified businesses. When the aut hor is saying that the world is flat, he signifies that innovation can take place without emigration. The author has sarcastically explained the idea of cross-cultural businesses and the emergence of new IT hubs such as India. The first part of the article is an eye-opener. It clearly explains the current situation where the Americans and other western countries are no longer the only influencing forces. Today, the western countries are competing with the eastern counterparts. Earlier, even after having required skills and knowledge, employees and workers from developing countries were left out in terms of proper opportunities. With the advent of globalisation, the scenario has changed and so are the available options. In the second phase, the author describes the various forces that helped in flattening the world. In the year 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. According to author and many other eminent writes, this was the first mark of globalisation (Gang, Rivera-Batiz and Yun, 2010) . As the fall of the Berlin wall symbolised economic freedom for Germany in the year 1995, Netscape was announced public.