Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Chal ...

The World Isn’t Flat

Thomas Friedman (2007), foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, has declared the world to be flat. The image is meant to convey a technology-converged world that transcends geographical boundaries, creating a global supply chain for manufacturing and services. According to Friedman, cheap, ubiquitous telecommunications have broken down the barriers to international competition. Cultures open to free e-trade will survive; the rest will fade into oblivion. The flat-world concept came to Friedman after talking to business leaders in India, where a rapidly growing service industry is fueling the expansion of the middle class.

What the flat-world imagery overlooks is the widening income gap caused by globalization and the very real problem of poverty. From the standpoint of many of India’s business leaders, technology has created a more level playing field on which they can compete globally. Since 2006 India has experienced one of the highest rates of economic growth in the world, averaging over 8% annually. But what about the 25% of India’s population who still live below the poverty line? Almost half the children under age five are chronically malnourished, and more than one out of every 20 will die before age five (Bhowmick, 2010). The fact remains that in India, as in numerous other nations, the world may be flat for some, but for many it remains anything but an equal-opportunity experience.

To look at the issue another way, using the World Bank’s categorizations, the world’s approximately 7 billion people can be roughly divided as follows: 1 billion are high income, 3 billion middle income, and 2 billion struggling. The remaining 1 billion, the so-called bottom billion, are so poor as to be fighting a daily battle for existence: “More than eight million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive” (Sachs, 2005, p. 1). The gap between rich and poor is growing both within and between nations. Forty percent of the world’s population lives in poverty today—up 36% from 1981 (Stiglitz, 2007a). In 1820 the economic gap among all nations was 4 to 1—the richest nation was only