The Flattening of the World, the Flattening of Humanity

What has caused the increases in globalization over the last two decades?
Thomas Friedman blames it on technology (2006, The World is Flat, p.48). In “Critical Perspectives on Globalization” Arthur Macewan says governments have pushed forward globalization in a concentrated bid for power (2006, Real World Globalization, p.1). Ellen Frank claims that globalization is a misguided grasp by poorer countries to better themselves that has only led them to more poverty (2003, Real World Globalization, p. 80). Pankaj Ghemawat tells us that the percent of the world really affected by globalization is minimal and that this huge monster or savior is just a lot of hot air (2007, “Why the World Isn’t Flat”).
I muse that the increase in globalization is the result of the export of American materialism as a world-wide goal. It is due to the expectation and greed of consumers for low cost goods, combined with a US economy and matching hegemony that relies completely on domestic consumerism to survive. The rise of globalization is due to the fact that money is more powerful than politics, and multi-national corporations now make the decisions that control the lives of the world’s citizens rather than governments, no matter what façade of democracy, monarchism or socialism; multi-nationals want to make as much money as possible with no regard for the people who make them that money.
How well does Friedman’s list of “Flatteners” in chapter 2 explain globalization and what does he leave out?
Technology amplifies the best and worst of humanity. As we plunge forward into the “warp speed” described by Friedman (2006, The World is Flat, p.49) we are not evolving into a more compassionate or communicative bunch; we are remaining the same complex package of greed and generosity that has always characterized humans. Our traits are simply magnified, echoed and manipulated more powerfully by the screen, the chip and the fiber-optic cable. Globalization reflects this: not an evolution, but a magnification of good and bad on a scale not yet imagined.
Friedman’s technology-based flatteners accent the good and naively ignore the bad (i.e. the potential for a decrease in positive communication and the situation of arrogance in that if an entity does not exist online it does not exist period). Because of this, Friedman does not exactly explain globalization as much as he frames it in a good light using “flattening” as a desirable reality.
A realistic aspect that is largely ignored in his paradigm is that flattening cannot overcome the political upheaval that racism, imperialism, cultural insensitivity, and warfare which keep the world quite round indeed. He does allude to this briefly when he writes, “the faster and broader this transition to a new era, the greater potential for disruption,” on page 49 (2006, The World is Flat.)
Several flatteners that he leaves out include environmental destruction and the rise of world mono-culture, both artistically and biologically. The threat posed to the planet by all this so-called “prosperity” is certainly flattening. We all face it equally, and, according to Friedman, are causing it more equally all the time. Cheap goods or quality goods, it doesn’t matter as long as those goods are made with non-renewable resources, and are destined to exist for millennia releasing toxins into the water, soil and air that sustain us.
Another flattener is the elimination of variety in human cultures. American standards of ugliness and poor artistic quality of life are exported along with the multi-national corporate conquistadores. A round world is a world of adventure and mystery, where human cultural variety is beyond our comprehension. As the world is flattened (if the world is flattened), there will be nothing more to discover or learn in the familiar abyss of standardized strip malls, factory farms and gated communities, with architecture as wasteful as it is hideous to behold. Friedman conveniently trivializes this with patronizing stories such as his craving for sushi that was satisfied in Arkansas (2006, The World is Flat, p.156).
How do the changes of the past two decades compare with previous patterns of globalization?
Again, I would assert that the basic appetites or impulses for globalization have not changed; what has changed is the technological ability to achieve it faster and on a wider scale. Humans are not worse or better than they ever were, however, those with money are ever more able to make more money, and those with resources are ever more anxious to control their use. If one thing doesn’t change in the progression of humanity, it is that unchecked power will protect itself and expand itself at all costs. Globalization is a manifestation of the power of the rich over the poor and it continues in accordance with the human ability to control the world through imperial force (both monetary and military) and technological innovation.
Technology and human “advancement” have not changed an essential basic principle. If a worker does not own his/her means of production, land, raw materials, tools, and does not have the skills for survival outside of what a multi-national or government chooses to provide, that person is at the mercy of an entity that does not have his/her best interest in mind. The closer people are to owning their own land and their own means of making a living, the happier, more creative, liberated, stable, and safe they will be. The Friedman paradigm of societies specializing in mono-commodities or services, participating in large scale trading between them controlled by multinational profit maximization takes the average person ever further from his/her means of production and leads us into a world that is dangerous, exploitative, and very, very, boring.