Friedman portrays three fundamental changes as the initial steps towards globalization; changes in how we communicate, how we invest and how we attain information about the world. The “democratization of technology” was the initial step. Innovat

ions in the 1980’s and 1990’s such as computerization, Internet tools and telecommunications are the driving forces behind the democratization of technology. The ability to communicate with anyone around the world easily and cheaply allowed the potential for wealth distribution to be evenly distributed geographically. The “commercial paper” market actually started the “democratization of finance.” These were bonds issued by corporations directly to the public to raise capital. Bonds stopped the monopoly that banks held over people, which allowed for credit to flow freely. The third and final change was the “democratization of information.” This change began with the globalization of television. Cable television allowed all types of information to be transmitted to people around the world. With the three democratization’s, corporations and governments around the world will have to restructure themselves to take advantage of this new system of globalization. Friedman feels that only the competitive will survive. He feels that alternative democracies and governments will not work and the only answer is free-market capitalism.

Friedman describes the market place today as being an “Electronic Herd” consisting of multinationals, such as IBM and GM, as well as all those people involved in the buying and selling of stocks, bonds and currencies around the world. Friedman describes the herd as being able to move around freely with the end of the Cold War and the democratization of finance, technology and information. Friedman refers to the electronic herd as having people who are “shapers” or “adapters” in that shapers will create standards while adapters will adjust to a shaper’s regulations and learn to prosper from them. Friedman admits that unless countries have a strong culture and environmental filters than will have trouble interacting with the electronic herd because it will overwhelm their cultural identity turning the world in to a “global mesh.”

Overall Friedman’s book presents a realistic image of globalization. He is obviously in favour of it throughout his book that does not cause him to overlook globalization’s flaws. He shows how globalizations affects people from every angle. His view on globalization’s effect on culture seems accurate to me because of the effect American culture has on foreign nations. Also, I agree with him when he states that globalization will create business opportunities for people that were never present before yet he is naïve in assuming that people will go along with the gap being built between the rich and poor. Friedman seems to believe that people around the world are satisfied by money because even when it comes to geopolitics, he believes that people will set aside political differences for economic prosperity. While, it would be nice if this was the case, history has shown that nations have often foregone economic prosperity to war with a political enemy. Yet, in the rest of his book Friedman understands people well. But if you take anything away from this book, you should understand that it was written with a bias for globalization.

Friedman does discuss the negative effects on the economy f

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