- The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman,
- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, and
- The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
It is interesting that only after I am through with a few chapters in the second and the third books that it dawned on me that all these books discuss different angles of the same phenomenon. The first introduces the phenomenon head-on, journalist style; the second is the more sober personal angle in facing the phenomenon; and the third formalizes a framework to explain outcomes of the phenomenon.
A phenomenon that is globalization.
Globalization is here. Nobody can stop it. It is transforming things faceless and less personal. And it increases the gap between the rich (the hits/the head) and the poor (the non-hits/the tail). And we need to make sure it is sustainable to prevent a (potentially violent) backlash.
All coincidences in life and the choices we made brought us here today. Coincidences put us in the time of globalization. Our choices bring each of us to our current unique state of personal life. What do we do from here?
And nobody really understands what exactly globalization will bring. We think we start to understand it better. One example of such understanding is formulating the "long tail" phenomenon.
The Long Tail points out that individual thing in the tail (the poor) is small, but collectively they can compete with the hits (the head/the rich) because of sheer number/volume. This agrees nicely with the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.
I personally think that one bad thing about globalization is the fact that "winner takes all". To me, this seems to be the reason why globalization can result in a backlash. In the least, it stimulates efforts which may result in globalization being unsustainable.
I am still not sure myself how to interpret all these...
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(Edited on 5 March 2015)
