I actually agree with Friedman in this chapter as he promotes David Ricardo's free-trade theory of competitive advantage. Friedman talks about how free-trade must use both domestic and foreign strategies that will help Americans adapt to the globalization of the world. Everyone is scared that because of this flat growing world we are going to run short on jobs and lose our high wages. That is definitely not the case, Americans have a chance to take advantage of this, and it should bring innovation. Americans should be more motivated to increase their education to stay above the curve in the new job world. All global markets need to be open so more nations would be part of the global free-trade system. Job outsourcing and unemployment will both be decreased because of the greater demand for goods and services in the world. There is possibility of an overall gain in trade if each country specializes in what they have a comparative advantage in trades in with other specialized countries. As long as the global market keeps growing, there is going to be more demand for these goods and services, also meaning that a lot more people will be needed for jobs.
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We need our governments to highly value the education of all our American citizens. They should make it a point to provide good educational programs to our youth. We need good teachers at every school, even if this means having to use technology to our advantage and broadcast their class to students on occation. There is no point to have a bad teacher and not letting the student advance in their knowledge. We also need to have afterschool care come in with big brothers & big sisters to help tutor these young children. Some parents are unable to provide for various reasons. It is only when we instill good study skills when children are small that we have better chances of having an overall more educated youth in our future. With this, American can remain competitive.
I wonder if a sizeable portion of low-skill blue collar workers will have the capacity to compete in the new flatter world, even if educational opportunities are available to upgrade skills. My hunch is a lot of the manual laborers and low-skill service workers in the US don’t have the capacity/potential and desire to earn an advanced degree and launch themselves onto the higher and flatter playing field. I think the only way for the US to win in the flat world is to not only upgrade the education of all Americans who are capable (of being upgraded) and have the desire to be upgraded, but also the US will need to expand its welfare programs at the same time. So simultaneously, the educated and connected people who “get it” will be generating ideas and building capital to further their progress, while there will be a class of people who will have no choice but to either work in low-skill service industries like restaurants and hotels, or if there are not enough of these jobs then the government dole will have to expand to prevent a large class of homeless people with no future in the US. I don’t like the idea of expanding welfare, but what else are we going to do with the sizeable portion of America that won’t be able to enter the ranks of idea-based professions?
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