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Friedman's Lexus and Olive Tree

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The objective of Thomas Friedman’s book The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization is to understand globalization as a complex and interconnected international system where he embellishes the system with symbols and bold metaphors. In the opening scene of the text, he mentions the crash of Thai currency, the baht in 1997 which triggered a domino effect on the Southeast Asian market. The result of which was Southeast Asian recession. Recession in Southeast Asia caused rise in prices of commodities all over the world. Friedman’s description of the events in the opening scene is an example of this complex interconnected system called globalization. According to Friedman, globalization is a process that much of the world is going through now and is the sum total economic interests of everybody in the world. This complex system has broad dynamics that deal with finances, technology and intercommunication. The beginning of this era of globalization started with the fall of Berlin wall in 1989 indicating the end of cold war era. The Cold War system was a stationary system whereas globalization is a dynamic process. The world today is very fast paced and the velocity keeps on increasing rapidly. Unlike the Cold War system globalization has integrated the markets breaking out of cultural barriers and national borders. “I define globalization this way: it 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 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, cheaper than ever before.” (Friedman, 2012). At the center of such an extensive definition of globalization is the advanced technology and the internet.

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