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The now famous book The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman claims that opportunities available to people are growing more and more equal no matter where they live. This is meant to present more competition and challenges to those living in the Western world, but more benefits to others in less developed countries since the playing field has largely been levelled by the developments in communications technology. Especially the knowledge workers- those who do their work using their knowledge rather than their physical strength- of the Third World, who earlier had no means of squaring off against their counterparts in the advanced lands due to their less favourable location, are now no an equal footing thanks to technologies like the Internet, e-mail and work flow software that make the place where the work is actually performed far less important.
According to the author, the latest wave of globalization involves more and more work of an intellectual nature rather than just the manual and back-office work outsourced at the beginning. The trend that emerged with the off-shoring of tasks to be performed by cheap labour as countries like China and India opened up their economies has expanded to encompass many other domains that until recently nobody thought could be handled in a different place.
However, critics are quick to point out that it is not quite as simple as that. While certain sections of society in developing countries may do well with globalization, others- especially the poor and uneducated- may become even worse off as, for example, the cost of living in those countries rises with the growing incomes of the minority that does benefit from outsourcing, something being observed in some parts of India to name just one case.
And on the other hand, knowledge workers, despite the availability of all the technology, are affected in other ways by where they live according to psychologists. Interacting with other people- similar as well as different- plays a major role in the way those people perform, for whose work intellectual stimulation and creativity are vital. They are said to get quite a considerable boost to the quality of their work when stationed in places where they get the chance to mix with others rather than when isolated. This fact, coupled with better quality of life, explains why people in large numbers are still attracted to certain urban centres in spite of higher property prices and other expenses.
All in all, it seems that although the world may have got flatter, in Mr. Friedman’s words, than it once was, it is as yet nowhere near as flat as it should get for everyone to be on a par, and probably will never be entirely so. As they have done throughout human history, preferred locations will continue to appeal to talented people for quite some time to come.
Tags: benefit, creativity, equal, globalization, intellectual, location, poor, uneducated
