Similarly, Chapter Eight, "This Is Not a Test," is a must read for every CEO, manager and government official. In this chapter, Friedman has highlighted that "lifetime employment is a form of fat that a flat world simply cannot sustain any longer" (p. 284) (Jones, 2005). He argued for a policy of "lifetime employability," which is a kind of social agreement between government and business and the people that, in its simplest terms, give assurance "that government and companies will focus on giving you the tools to make you more lifetime employable." Further he also argued in support of the universal portability of pensions and health care (Zakaria, 2005).
Conclusion
The most impressive thing about this book was the stories author narrates of individuals who are making a difference in the flat world. For example, the Harvard business grads set up a company in Cambodia to conduct data entry, while another one as a businessman in India set up a school for the Untouchables. When Friedman asked the second grade children of the Untouchables as what would they like to be when they grow up, they replied "an astronaut, a doctor," etc. (p. 468). These examples should be enough reason for us to look at our own roles in the world and question ourselves, if we doing enough good, in terms of giving enough back to our nation, to our world?
However, there are few questions which...
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World Is Flat: The Impact of Globalization on the United States In the best-selling book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman provides a well-researched series of chapters that detail how globalization and the congruency of cultures is making country-level differentiation more challenging to achieve. His contention is that globalization is being caused by the combination of Internet-based technologies and platforms, combined with low-cost labor and higher educational standards in emerging nations
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