The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

Rating:
Summary: Globalisation for dummies :-)
Review: This book was written in 1999. Now it does not appear as path breaking as it was said to be when it first came out. Maybe it's because we are now familiar with most of the things he talks about. There has been no shortage of articles on this subject in the media. Still the book has the advantage that it brings together the various aspects of globalisation in one volume.

There are some good 'big ideas' in the beginning of the book. But towards the latter part the narration loses its rigour as Friedman keeps elaborating the same points. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the book is written for the layman.

I got a feeling of deja vu while reading the book. It's very similar to Alvin Toffler's works. In fact it can be considered as the sequel to Toffler's 'future' trilogy (Future Shock, Third Wave, and Power Shift).

Rating:
Summary: a shallow misunderstanding, lacking any concrete evidence
Review: After reading the Lexus and the Olive Tree, I was struck by one facet in particular: the overwhelming lack of evidence. In his justification of globalization, Friedman seems to blindly turn away from actual statistical data, such as the growth or decline in GDP of nations involved in free trade, and instead cites the OPINIONS of his peers. While this starts off being somewhat entertaining, it soon becomes downright irritating, and halfway through the book I found myself getting more annoyed by the page. How about some examples of actual nations helping themselves through free trade, backed by eviednce which shows that their gross domestic profit was lower when they started their liberalized trade tactics than it is today?!! Nope. Instead, Friedman decides to use, and I am being completely serious here, television commercials inplace of evidence. When he isn't citing comercials (which he does QUITE A LOT) he is using the opinions of those national leaders who are making a fortune off of globalization while the people of their country starve as a result of poor social services (or a lack thereof).
As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly smug, claiming that not only is globalization the best thing since the printing press, but it is THE ONLY OPTION. Now, I realize that many people today might not be familiar with the different options out there in terms of organizing a nation's economy, but seeing as Friedman is a foreign-affairs columnist for The New York Times, he should at the very least know that other options do exist.
In fact, not only do these options exist, they have proven to be more sucessful than Friedman's beloved free-market capitalism. Belive it or not, those countries who are currently practicing a hybrid between nationalized capitalism and socialism (such as Venezuela, Scandanavia, and the most extreme example- China) have had the fastest growing GDP's of any countries in the past few years. China has actually had the fastest growing GDP of any country for decades!!! How do they do this? By completely ignoring globalization and doing the exact opposite of what the free-market economists at the World Bank advise them to do! Don't belive me? Look it up for yourself.
the fact is, by ignoring the examples of what is actually hapening to nations that either follow or reject free-market capitalism, Friedman is incapable of adequately understanding globalization. Thus, he is forced to resort to praising it with blind obedience while reiterating the words of his greedy colleagues and the TV commercials of corporations that make their money by tricking the public into trusting them.
Now, if you want a real book on globalization, one that actually relies on factual data, I would suggest Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. As an investigative reporter, Palast employs every tool he knows to obtain classified documents, internal memos, and inside information from every organization from the World Bank and IMF to Enron to Tony Bair's office. Honestly, I have never read another piece of reporting as corageous and informative as this book, and would recomend it to anyone who wants to find out how globaization actually functions (hint: it isn't quite like what Friedman asserts). For those who don't know Palast, this is the guy who broke the Lobbygate story in the UK, was reproting on the accounting problems of Enron in the early 1990's (!), and broke the story of the problems intitiated by Jeb Bush in Florida during the 2000 presedential elections, among many other stories that mark one of the most improtant journalistic careers in the past two decades. Further, its a much more enjoyable read than any of Friedman's work, and gets more enjoyable as you progress, instead of annoying.