Module 5

IST Module 5 Pgs. 200-259

What is the triple convergence? It’s the convergence of all three globalizations and all 10 world flatteners.  Its outcome means that people from everywhere in the world can compete with each other because now, there is information at their fingertips and governments are allowing them to compete.  The countries that were held back by their governments were places like China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and central Asia.  In the 1990’s and through those years those same countries were opening up more and more to world trade.  Companies that were once restricted by laws to freely trade with other countries now had more freedom to trade, create, and share ideas with each other like never before. Friedman says “three billion people who had been locked out of the field suddenly found themselves liberated to plug and play with everybody else” (210).  That’s a big deal since it means change for countries that didn’t have much competition before.  Those countries now have to compete against new teams for the gold medal.  And since other countries are now developing more, they can stay in their home country to compete against their rivals.

In the case of India versus Indiana: the story goes like this: Indiana was in dire need of help.  Their computer system that processed unemployment claims needed an upgrade. So what Indiana did was look for people who could help them revamp their system.  The cheapest people that offered to help were Indians from Asia.  So, Indiana outsourced their unemployment system to India.  Kind of ironic right?  The Asian Indians told Indiana that they would bring in about 65 of their own people to work with the Indiana Government Center and they would also team up with a few of the local subcontractors from Indiana.  By working together they would come up with the best computer system for their needs, which would speed up unemployment claims, and save on postage.   The Indians would get paid for their work and the locals from Indiana would save precious tax dollars that could be used in a more beneficial way. It was a win-win situation for everybody right?  Well the Indiana Democrats didn’t think the same way. They decided to break it off with India and hire locals to piece the system together.  The question posed here is who was exploiting whom?  Was Indiana exploiting India’s cheap labor and high quality, or was India exploiting Indiana by offering to help them at an affordable rate?  The black and white lines of exploitation are gray in the new flat world. Which leads us to the next topic: Who owns what (Friedman)?

            The flat world poses new challenges than the challenges that existed in the old world.  Because it is so fast and easy to share ideas and information, it is now harder to take credit for your own ideas, especially if others take them and add on or counterfeit them.  For example, Friedman explains “The PC is the product of a lot of cross-licensing between the company that had the patent on the cursor and the company that had the patent on the mouse and the screen” (254).  The patents need to come together to make one product - the PC.  Patents are good in a sense that it allows individuals to protect their new and useful inventions and to reap the rewards of their product.  But with the whole world competing, it’s hard to keep a patented item from being stolen and replicated because not every country has the same patent laws.  Friedman writes a quote from Craig Mundie “you should assume that there isn’t anything that can’t be counterfeited quickly” from Microsoft Word to airplane parts (254).  The flat world has conflicting desires.  It desires to share ideas and collaborate with others to make a product great, but it also desires the credit of making the product and the power to decide who gets to use the product and for what purpose the product was indented for.  

            Honestly competition is getting fiercer around the world because there are now many people who have the skills and the tools to compete against each other.  The companies with the lowest prices and highest quality will come out on top in the end, even if it does mean that those companies cut employee benefits down so that the state picks of the tab. Like with the example of Walmart.