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by Robert Morris
Business Nugget #39
Why did Thomas L. Friedman write The Lexus and the Olive Tree, published by Farrar Straus Giroux? Late in the book, he observes:
When you strip people's homes of their distinctness -- either by homogenizing them or by destroying them environmentally -- you undermine not only their culture but also social cohesion. Culture, at its best, can be one of the most powerful forms of voluntary restraint in human behavior. It gives life structure and meaning. It sanctions a whole set of habits, behavioral restraints, expectations and traditions that pattern life and hold societies together at their core. When unrestrained globalization uproots cultures and environments, it destroys the necessary underlying fabric of communal life.
Friedman is a distinguished journalist. (He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting for The New York Times.) Over time, he has earned prominence as an interpreter of world affairs. His From Bierut to Jerusalem won the National Book Award in 1988. Curiously, what most reviewers of The Lexus and the Olive Tree have (as yet) failed to point out is that Friedman is also a moralist with passionate concerns about the negative impact of globalization. He really cares about individuals, families, villages and towns...indeed entire cultures...which, over time, forsake or have taken from them a unique identity. He accepts the inevitability of globalization; he does not accept the inevitability of homogenization. With all due respect to the superior quality of the Lexus automobile, Friedman affirms the need for preserving the olive tree amidst the "inexorable integration" of virtually everything within the world they share.
Friedman sets "The Opening Scene: The World Is Ten Years Old." That is to say, a new world was born when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Even now, the global economy "is still finding its bearings." The balance of The Lexus and the Olive Tree provides a "compass" and is organized as follows:
Part One: Seeing the System
Part Two: Plugging into the System
Part Three: The Backlash Against the System
Part Four: America and the System
It is important to stress that Friedman is not opposed to globalization, if for no other reason than the fact that it will proceed with or without his approval. Nor does he romanticize or sentimentalize what for many are viewed as "the good old days", perhaps symbolized for them by the olive tree. On the contrary. Friedman is a hardheaded realist. To this reader, at least, the central issue is one of balance: How to derive maximum benefit from globalization while preserving certain traditional values? Indeed, Friedman seems to be suggesting that preservation of those values is essential to deriving such benefit. In Friedman's words, "to find a healthy balance between preserving a sense of identity, home, and community and doing what it takes to survive within the globalization system."
There is nothing inherently evil about a Lexus...nor anything inherently virtuous about an olive tree. Obviously, Friedman uses both as metaphors and they should be viewed as such. The "system" to which Friedman refers is rapidly, indeed "inexorably" expanding into virtually every grove of olive trees. Eventually, sooner than later, there will be an almost total integration "of markets, nation-states, and technologies to a degree never witnessed before -- in a way that enables individuals, corporations, and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and in a way that is also producing a powerful backlash from those brutalized or left behind by this new system."
Were Charles Darwin writing this commentary on The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he would probably affirm that the hundreds of examples and illustrations provided by Friedman are eminently relevant; also, Darwin would probably suggest that criteria for identifying "the fittest" in 1999 would include seeing the system of globalization, plugging into it, and meanwhile understanding why there is a "backlash" to it. What of value can be learned from such opposition?
Friedman is dead-on: Either human beings manage the system or it will manage them. The choice is theirs. Are there strategies and guidelines for such management? Yes. Friedman concludes his brilliant analysis as follows: "A healthy global society is one which can balance the Lexus and the olive tree all the time., and there is no better model for this on earth today than America. And that's why I believe so strongly that for globalization to be sustainable America must be at its best -- today, tomorrow, all the time. It not only can be, it must be, a beacon for the whole world. Let us not squander this precious legacy." In remarks such as these, Friedman clearly reveals the passion of his convictions.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree is "must reading" for anyone who wants to understand the nature and extent of challenges to the "underlying fabric of communal life." Only with such understanding can "a healthy global society" be achievable and then sustainable.
Copyright: 2003
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The Lexus and the Olive Tree
by Robert Morris
Business Nugget #39
Why did Thomas L. Friedman write The Lexus and the Olive Tree, published by Farrar Straus Giroux? Late in the book, he observes:
When you strip people's homes of their distinctness -- either by homogenizing them or by destroying them environmentally -- you undermine not only their culture but also social cohesion. Culture, at its best, can be one of the most powerful forms of voluntary restraint in human behavior. It gives life structure and meaning. It sanctions a whole set of habits, behavioral restraints, expectations and traditions that pattern life and hold societies together at their core. When unrestrained globalization uproots cultures and environments, it destroys the necessary underlying fabric of communal life.
Friedman is a distinguished journalist. (He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting for The New York Times.) Over time, he has earned prominence as an interpreter of world affairs. His From Bierut to Jerusalem won the National Book Award in 1988. Curiously, what most reviewers of The Lexus and the Olive Tree have (as yet) failed to point out is that Friedman is also a moralist with passionate concerns about the negative impact of globalization. He really cares about individuals, families, villages and towns...indeed entire cultures...which, over time, forsake or have taken from them a unique identity. He accepts the inevitability of globalization; he does not accept the inevitability of homogenization. With all due respect to the superior quality of the Lexus automobile, Friedman affirms the need for preserving the olive tree amidst the "inexorable integration" of virtually everything within the world they share.
Friedman sets "The Opening Scene: The World Is Ten Years Old." That is to say, a new world was born when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Even now, the global economy "is still finding its bearings." The balance of The Lexus and the Olive Tree provides a "compass" and is organized as follows:
Part One: Seeing the System
Part Two: Plugging into the System
Part Three: The Backlash Against the System
Part Four: America and the System
It is important to stress that Friedman is not opposed to globalization, if for no other reason than the fact that it will proceed with or without his approval. Nor does he romanticize or sentimentalize what for many are viewed as "the good old days", perhaps symbolized for them by the olive tree. On the contrary. Friedman is a hardheaded realist. To this reader, at least, the central issue is one of balance: How to derive maximum benefit from globalization while preserving certain traditional values? Indeed, Friedman seems to be suggesting that preservation of those values is essential to deriving such benefit. In Friedman's words, "to find a healthy balance between preserving a sense of identity, home, and community and doing what it takes to survive within the globalization system."
There is nothing inherently evil about a Lexus...nor anything inherently virtuous about an olive tree. Obviously, Friedman uses both as metaphors and they should be viewed as such. The "system" to which Friedman refers is rapidly, indeed "inexorably" expanding into virtually every grove of olive trees. Eventually, sooner than later, there will be an almost total integration "of markets, nation-states, and technologies to a degree never witnessed before -- in a way that enables individuals, corporations, and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and in a way that is also producing a powerful backlash from those brutalized or left behind by this new system."
Were Charles Darwin writing this commentary on The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he would probably affirm that the hundreds of examples and illustrations provided by Friedman are eminently relevant; also, Darwin would probably suggest that criteria for identifying "the fittest" in 1999 would include seeing the system of globalization, plugging into it, and meanwhile understanding why there is a "backlash" to it. What of value can be learned from such opposition?
Friedman is dead-on: Either human beings manage the system or it will manage them. The choice is theirs. Are there strategies and guidelines for such management? Yes. Friedman concludes his brilliant analysis as follows: "A healthy global society is one which can balance the Lexus and the olive tree all the time., and there is no better model for this on earth today than America. And that's why I believe so strongly that for globalization to be sustainable America must be at its best -- today, tomorrow, all the time. It not only can be, it must be, a beacon for the whole world. Let us not squander this precious legacy." In remarks such as these, Friedman clearly reveals the passion of his convictions.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree is "must reading" for anyone who wants to understand the nature and extent of challenges to the "underlying fabric of communal life." Only with such understanding can "a healthy global society" be achievable and then sustainable.
Copyright: 2003
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