Admittedly, I got Thomas and Milton mixed up. Milton is now next on my list. Thomas is an economic journalist; Milton is the actual economist. Still, I would have ended up reading this book no matter on this same economics list. It was the rage twenty years ago, just shortly after I moved to Georgia. I remember lots of NPR interviews and the like. Interviews with the author made me uncomfortable, because the topic is one to make one uncomfortable—namely, globalization's effect on each and every person on the planet, which can have some rather difficult implications for any single person who is looking to maintain a job. At thirtysomething, this was scary; at fiftysomething, I should be even more scared, insofar as it would be much harder to change focus and grab some new career. The fifties were many of my parents' generation lost jobs; some ended up getting better work, but others struggled along at odd jobs for the next decade until social security kicked in and never really recovered financially. Still, what give me some condolence is that globalization didn't come for me in the intervening twenty years.
It's interesting reading Friedman's book in the context of the new Trump administration. One can look at much of what he's doing as a reaction to just the sort of things Friedman writes about, and at least according to Friedman, they are just about the worst reaction one can have. Cutting one's self off from the world—with trade barriers and anti-immigrant policies—are more likely to slow the economy than protect the jobs one has. That would be Adam Smith's view too: trade barriers are good only to protect industries that are essential to protect for the national interest, like, say, military weaponry and the raw materials that go into that. But one can see why cutting the nation off from the world would seem to be the initial reaction.
Friedman makes clear the globalization is likely to lower the relative wealth of the United States, that is, wealth relative to other nations. However, it is also likely to “grow the pie,” as conservatives have in the past argued about income inequality. That is, it doesn't matter if the rich get richer faster if everyone is getting richer. There isn't a limit on riches one shares.
The first part of Friedman's book focuses on how globalization takes place and what sort of technologies have allowed that to happen, with numerous stories about businesses that have put such technologies into practice, things like offshoring and special software and so on. One of the most interesting developments to me was the case of UPS, which I had been totally unaware of. Apparently, some manufacturers have outsourced the repairs on their products to UPS. What I mean by that is instead of some Asian electronics manufacturer having us ship the defective product all the way back to the factory, it'll arrange for UPS to do not just the delivery but the repair itself. Numerous companies have apparently done this, such that UPS has facilities that are set up to fix stuff. This cuts down on shipping time and cost, for a fee that UPS reaps from the manufacturer, and makes things more convenient for the consumer.
So how are we to cope with things like accounting and taxes and constumer service and, well, just about anything one can think to outsource, and then even things one thinks can't be outsourced, to another nation with a labor force hungry for work and a cheaper cost-of-living? Friedman notes that the easiest tasks have been those that have tended to be farmed out, the standard accounting, for example. That allows those living in the older richer economies to focus on creative and more difficult endeavours. To do that, we need to be on our game in terms of maintaining education. (Something that seems, again, awful in terms of how it is precisely in education that the current administration has seen fit to start many of its budget cuts.)
But even this seems a difficult maneuver to me, when so many of the workers in a place like India actually have great educations. Who's to say an engineer has to be American? One could have the top-notch engineer overseas just as easily do the same work cheaper. In that sense, while Friedman's education argument makes some sense, it also doesn't seem a cure-all. Friedman talks of how some people he know have developed throughout their careers, moving from one thing to another in terms of starting off as, say, illustrators, then moving to medical illustration, then some very narrow portion of the industry—each time, making the change in light of the fact that the previous task became too easy for others (often overseas others) to do using software and training and thus lowering the price of the service. One of the things that made me so anxious when I heard about this book at thirtysomething was the way in which Friedman really pushed education—or really, reeducation. But the thing is, I like learning and study, but I didn't want to be in school constantly, chasing a new certificate or degree every five years because the previous job is no longer necessary. It's tiring enough working forty hours a week; add constant night classes on top of that just to keep a job, it just seems like a drudging way to live.
One interesting proposal in that regard, however, is Friedman's idea of underemployment insurance or transitionary employment insurance. Instead of paying people money when they lose their job or reward them for training, pay people for taking a job in a new-to-them industry, even if it means lower pay. It makes sense. So you're an engineer, but the product you worked on and specialized in goes defunct after twelve years; you were in the higher levels of the company and now you are out of work. You're chasing another job with equal pay, but there aren't many left in that sector of the industry anymore. Instead, employment insurance would pay you not just to go to school for retraining but rather for taking more of an entry-level position in another industry. It would make up the difference, and then, on the job, as you gain more experience and move up and earn more money, the insurance would kick off. This seemed one of the best ideas in the book, which if ever implemented, really would help people in a globalizing and fast-changing economy, one that we really can't recede from and expect to remain relevant or well off. (Indeed, Friedman criticizes the Bush administration for doing to some degree just that in reaction to 9/11, with its focus on closing borders and old gas technologies, rather than being forward thinking, and here we seem to be doing that again—but to a much greater degree.)
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