A thunderstorm with a hundred mile an hour winds swept Central Minnesota a week ago, cutting a path from Wahpeton to Dent right through the yards of several of my friends. Despite losing half of a shade providing apple tree, one was upbeat. A passionate Green, she was excited by Thomas Friedman's new book "The World is Flat".
The premise of his book is there's a wealth of opportunities that come with change. The upside, he says, of outsourcing and internet connectivity is the growing economies in some of the poorest countries in the world, particularly India and southeast Asia.
I haven't read it, and probably won't. I get enough of Friedman perusing the "most e-mailed" articles in the NYT.
In politics- on both sides of the aisle- lip service is as common as kissing babies. During the Kerry campaign, the Democrats flogged outsourcing for a while.
"We don't need to build walls, we need to build bridges. We don't need protection, we need opportunity."
That's a quote, not from Friedman, but Brother Bill. The neo cons would squirm mightily at the thought, but Clinton was the presiding preacher of the free market revolution.
Choosing hope rather than fear (and ignoring for a moment the erosion in wages, benefits and pensions here in America, everything that leads to a comfortable margin of middle class prosperity...)
What's pleasingly surprising about the rapidly evolving globalization is the leveling of the playing field for many third world countries.
A rising tide floats all boats.
I grew up on fairy tales. Magic seeds and heavenly beanstalks. Seven league boots. Riches found at the end of rainbows.
It's appealing to believe that global poverty will disappear without any effort or sacrifice on our part, in the face of open markets, evolving technology, and the universal lust for a cell phone.
I am suspicious, however, of Friedman, whose last job was cheerleading for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. When the WMD scare wasn't enough, Friedman supplied the administration with a new rationale. It was Friedman who claimed that a silent majority in the Arab states were begging for democracy.
"We just adopted a baby called Baghdad," he wrote when the body bags started arriving , "and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. Because raising that baby, in the neighborhood it lives in, is going to be a mammoth task."
Making the world safe for American exceptionalism is an old theme. Dictating the terms of a country's surrender isn't democracy, even though you've set up voting booths.
That's the fundamental fallacy behind Friedman's high flying rhetoric.
The world is shrinking. Outsourcing is inevitable. When the free market boon reaches into the slums of Calcutta, we can all rejoice.
What makes me uneasy about Friedman is that he makes neoconservative ideas palatable to many liberals. Idealism is his rabbit and optimism is his hat. But bunnies don't necessarily thrive in haberdasheries, when you take away the magic cloak.
Ireland, he says, in his column this week, hit the free market jackpot through a combination of free college tuition, and low corporate tax rates.
The End of the Rainbow
Progressives love the first part, free college, but you gotta buy that second part, the part that's bringing a smile to the lips of Grover Norquist.
And then, to my eyes, the math looks funny. Less taxes, free college? Somebody's paying the piper.