Thomas L. Friedman: “Globalization as an International System”

Rob Edwards

Thomas L. Friedman: “Globalization as an International System”

• Thomas L. Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times

• His main point is that “globalization is an international system that has now replaced the old Cold War system, and, like that Cold War system, globalization has its own rules and logic that today directly or indirectly influence the politics, environment, geopolitics and economics of virtually every country in the world.”

• Although there has been globalization for many centuries, the world is different today in the degree and intensity with which the world is being globalized

• The pre-WWI era of globalization, while still significant in its magnitude, left out most developing countries, and was very small compared to today

• Today's globalization is not only different in degree, but has technological and political differences as well

• Rather than globalization being dependent on railroads an automobiles, it's now propelled forward by microchips, satellites, fiber optics, internet, etc.

• People can now offer and trade services, as well as manage business on a global scale, all from one computer

• Friedman describes globalization “as an international system – the dominant international system that replaced the Cold War system after the fall of the Berlin Wall”

• By this, he means that the Cold war had its own structure of power, which was the balance between the US and USSR

• The Cold War also had its own rules, foreign policy, dominant ideas, demographic trends, etc.

  • The Cold war system influenced the domestic politics, commerce, and foreign relations of virtually every country in the world

• Today's era of globalization is a similar international system, with its own unique attributes that are in stark contrast to those of the Cold War

• Whereas the Cold War world was defined by who you were divided from and allied to, the globalization world is defined by who you are connected to

• Whereas the Cold War world was frozen in its ways, the globalized world is ever changing, developing, and expanding

• The driving idea behind globalization is free market capitalism

• The nation states, like the USSR and US, were the focal point of the Cold War system. The new globalization system deviates from this pattern

• Most importantly, the globalized world has its own structure of power

• There is also a crucial balance between nation states and global markets, as well as between nation states and individuals

• The modern world today is a trifecta of relations between states, Supermarkets (not the grocery kind), and Super-empowered individuals