Is the world flat?

Thomas Friedman had the chance to look at the world as he stood in India, with Nandan Nilekani and Vivek Paul. He was never seen the world like that ever before. Nandan Nilekani said to him “the global economic playing field is being levelled”. He was shaken. And then came the book “The World is Flat”

Its an interesting way to look at how things have changed in the past few years. The rules of the game have changed. Friedman looks at globalisation in versions. Version 1.0 when Colombus discovered America. Its interests me to observe that India was the country that made Colombus discover America. However, v1.0 was about countries globaliszing. Version 2.0 started from about 1800 AD when companies started to go global. And version 3.0 which is on now, is about individuals going global. I just did that if you are reading this from outside India.

Globalisation was born to make people in all walks of life better off. But experience tells us that at least some people are worse off. Joseph Stiglitz says that this is because the rules are set majorly by the main players. He’s right. But Friedman talks about the unflat world too. Countries like Africa are still to see the shining face of globalization. Well then it would mean that a part of the world has not entered to or completed globalization 2.0 so that they can upgrade to version 3.0. It might turn around. May be they will have a blast and take both the versions together. But what is to be understood is probably that there should be something by which we can make globalization work. One cannot be for or against globalisation. Its a part of evolution. Its growth. But what do we do if there is less growth in some areas? We sort it out and make it work somehow…