The Lexus And The Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

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As the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman has traveled to the four corners of the globe, interviewing people from all walks of contemporary life -- peasants in the Amazon rain forest, new entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Islamic students in Teheran, and the financial wizards on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.

Now Friedman has drawn on his years on the road to produce an engrossing and original look at the new international system that, more than anything else, is shaping world affairs today: globalization.

His argument can be summarized quite simply. Globalization is not just a phenomenon and not just a passing trend. It is the international system that replaced the Cold War system. Globalization is the integration of capital, technology and information across national borders, in a way that is creating a single global market and to some degree, a global village. You cannot understand the morning news or know where to invest you money or think about where the world is going unless you understand this new system, which is influencing the domestic policies and international relations of virtually every country in the world today. And once you do understand the world as Friedman explains it, you'll never look at it quite the same way again.

Using original terms and concepts -- from "The Electronic Herd" to "DOScapital 6.0" -- Friedman shows us how to see this new system. With vivid stories, he dramatizes the conflict of "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" -- the tension between the globalization system and ancient forms of culture, geography, tradition and community -- and spells out what we all need to do to keep this system in balance.

Finding the proper balance between the Lexus and the olive tree is the great drama of the globilization era, and the ultimate theme of Friedman's challenging, provocative book -- essential listening for all who care about how the world really works.

What Customers Say About The Lexus And The Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization:

The first is the 'Lexus' which is the world famous car made by the Toyota auto company. So, it is desirable to be in the state of equilibrium between them. Two things are used to explain the key word 'globalization' by the Thomas. The collapse of the cold age in the late of 1990s was the start of this globalization and it has been more accelerated rapidly with the help of communication, transportation and technology, which enables us to connect each other more closely than any other period. Lots of examples and proper figures of speech make this book not only useful but also exciting. It stands for cutting edge technology in our times and necessary item for our convenient life. The supporter groups who merely admire the Lexus will lose their nationality and identity, otherwise the adherents of the olive tree will have no chance to heighten their way of life.

Now we are in the midst of the trend and have no right to veto this flow of the times, whether we like it or not. Friedman who is the author of this book. Concretely speaking, we are cherishing the value of the democratization of technology, information and finance in our community. The next is the olive tree which symbolizes our family, community, nation, religion and so on that we belong to. The author, of course, has argued that it is dangerous only stick to one thing between the Lexus and the olive tree. What is important is the balance of the two in order to live a wellbeing life with traditional identity. It is highly recommendable to everyone who is interested in the world of our times.

i would not recommend this book. Its totally outdated. i didn't like world is flat book either.

Thomas Friedman is not at fault for preaching the wonders of globalization, after all, much of what he says is widely accepted as the truth regarding how economies work. May I recommend Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang. A much more objective book on free trade.

When this was first written, it was a novel perspective on what was happening in globalization of trade, communications, entertainment, etc.The updates to the book, to make it relevant to our post-9/11 world, are helpful but they feel like an afterthought. I admire Friedman's intellect, his decades of hands-on, in-the-trenches reporting all over the world (and especially in the Mideast). And he writes so clearly, colorfully and with energy. The main meat of the book is still largely true but the occasional tone of gee-whiz enthusiasm about the internet, global trade deals etc. seems pretty dated to me now.

but never proves with evidence that the countries that put it on are better off than countries that don't. It's only Friedman's theory. Corrupt government leaders shared in these profits at the expense of the state's wealth. It was one of the most radical transformations of an economy in the history of mankind and under Friedman's theory, it should have been an enormous success because "the quicker you adopt the golden straitjacket, the better". The success of this strategy isn't backed by any evidence. Through protectionist barriers, they built up their own industries, significantly reduced poverty, became a major world economy and provided many of the amenities that first world economies have.

Exchange rates were kept artificially high which prevented exports. This is the correct way to approach globalization, not the stupid way Friedman and the IMF and Wall Street lobbyists advocate (ensuring US companies dominate ALL competition in the developing world).I'll give another example of why Friedman is wrong. The leaders further raided funds by taking out massive loans from international banks, the IMF and the US government at high interest rates and diverted much of the money into their bank accounts. For instance, he goes into great detail about the hardships that this golden straitjacket puts on government, the population and all the entrenched interests. However, upon reading the whole Stiglitz book and then going back to Friedman, I found Friedman to be poorly educated in economics and a waste of my time. First off, he explains a very popular. They kept those barriers up, built up their own businesses and industries, and when those industries were ready to compete in the global market, they slowly reduced trade barriers and integrated themselves into the global economy. Inflation ran wild for awhile and many people lost their life savings and retirement as a result.

Businesses were sold to well-connected, corrupt bureaucrats for next to nothing (who proceeded to strip the businesses of their assets and put most of the profits in foreign bank accounts). I read part of this book for a Globalization class I was taking, plus a few chapters from a different book "Globalization and Its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. He embraces this "golden straightjacket" (or restrictions that globalization puts on an economy) as inevitable and advocates a rapid transition to free-market systems with abandonment of old systems. Russia's transition from communism to capitalism was guided by the IMF and the US Treasury Department.

People in abject poverty become commonplace (from ~2% of the population living under $2 a day under communism. with all the "crony" capitalism that Friedman complains lingered on for decades, was successful before the 1997 market crisis specifically because of this crony capitalism. The fact is, countries DON'T have to follow this golden straitjacket model. ideology very well.

Southeast Asia in particular. It is indeed a cheerleader book for Globalization and has so many holes in it you can drive a car through.Friedman is a market fundamentalist with an agenda, which becomes very clear after reading a REAL book on economics. Banks didn't operate well. It seemed positive and interesting in comparison to Stiglitz (which focused on IMF economic policies and was VERY angry). Crime and mafia control spread everywhere. They didn't follow the IMF, Wall Street, and the electronic herd who were all clamoring for them to immediately open up their markets and push down barriers and completely eliminate government interference in the economy.

There is significant support for it in IMF, Wall Street and the Treasury Department and its important to understand. It was altogether complete chaos and an economic disaster.Compare this with China, who also moved from Communism to Capitalism but they started in the 70's and they did it much slower and much more carefully. I initially liked what I read from Friedman. GDP per Capita went DOWN so people were poorer with capitalism than they were under communism). to after the market failure ~25% of the population under $2 a day and ~40% of the population under $4 a day. There was no regulatory structure to compete fairly.

Secondly, he explains Capital Markets (or what he calls "short horned cattle") far better than my other book does. They transitioned to free markets so quick that it was devoid of competition. He also favors excessive deregulation of the economy and wants government to completely relinquish control. but failed. Look at Russia. WRONG.

While they aren't completely free-market yet, they are doing it very well and completely ignoring Thomas Friedman's "Golden Straitjacket".With that said, there are some good things about Thomas Friedman's book. Capital Markets, or investment in currency, is a hard concept to understand and Friedman makes a very good effort at explaining it.