The Buck Starts Here

The first thing you look at when you pick up a book is the title. So what does this one mean? Both the olive tree and the Lexus are metaphors. The olive tree represents a world stuck in the cold war era, or the slow lane of living. While the Lexus represents a world emerging from the cold war era and dedicated to modernize, streamline and privatize their economy's in order to flourish in the new system of globalization.

Thomas L. Friedman discusses many different ideas concerning globalization, but the most important topic that was put forth to the reader is the balances that are involved to succeed in a world of globalization. He says that the challenge in this era of globalization is to find a strong balance between preserving a sense of home, identity, and community and doing what it takes to survive with the system. The survival of globalization will depend on how well we strike the three major balances.

Globalization is "the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before--in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations and nation states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before and in a way that is enabling the world to reach into individuals, corporations, and nation states farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before." (Friedman 9) Globalization has its own dominant culture. It has tended to involve the spread of American culture and Americanization.

The main idea behind globalization is that of free-market capitalism. Free-market capitalism is the idea that the more you let market forces rule and open your economy to free trade, the more efficient your economy will become. Globalization is virtually the spread of free-market capitalism to every country of the world.

This system is built around three major balances that are necessary to survive in globalization. The first is the balance between the dominate state, the United States, and the subordinate states. The second balance is between nation states and global markets. The last balance is between the nation states and the individuals. Individuals are given more power to influence both markets and nation states than ever before.

There are three changes that are brought about through the system. They are the democratizations of technology, finance and information. The democratization of technology is the change in how we communicate with each other. This has enabled more and more people to reach farther and farther into more countries faster than ever before. The democratization of finance is the change in how we invest. The last change is the change on how we look upon the world or the democratization of information.

Once a country has recognized the rules of globalization and abides by them, they put on what is called the "golden straightjacket". In order to fit into the Golden Straightjacket, a country must first be seen as moving forward with some of the following golden rules: maintaining a low rate of inflation and price stability, making its currency convertible, eliminating government corruption and increasing exports. When you place all of these pieces to the puzzle together you get the Golden Straightjacket. When a country puts on the Golden Straightjacket you economy will grow while you politics will shrink.

In the globalization system, the state matters the most. This is because the ability of an economy to be able to withstand the ups and downs depends largely on the quality of the legal system. In this era it is the quality of the state that matters. Today you