Can People Keep Up Psychologically in a Flat World?

The recent book, The World is Flat, offers many stimulating ideas about how the world has evolved in recent years to the poker game it now is--the U.S., China, India, and the other players at the table. It gives a synopsis of the recent past but also a glimpse of the future. For people who have not yet read it, it summarizes the how the computer age has led us into a new economic age in human history.

For the first time, a person in India without an education in a first world country, can compete on almost a level playing field with people in first world countries. In the past, it might be necessary for a person from China who wanted to be successful in business, to train at Harvard or UCLA, and then to remain in the United States or Europe to establish a business. As new businesses become more computerized and more dependent on the internet, the actual geographic location of the business and entrepreneur becomes less and less important. It is becoming less important to do business physically in a first world country. Moreover, there can be a benefit to establishing the location of a business in a third world country if that is where the cheap labor is and if that's where the resources are. Sales and marketing can to a great degree be done over the internet while the physical plant is almost anywhere in the world.

The pace of change is staggering. China is turning out 65,000 engineers a year. In the United States, we are no longer just competing with others in the U.S. We are competing with China, and India, and soon others as well. We have been setting the pace for them to keep up with; soon they may be setting the pace. We have been content (many of us) to work 8 hour days. They are willing to work 12 hour days to be in the game. Can we keep up with them? Do we even want to keep up with them? Can we afford not to keep up with them? And if we do, can we deal psychologically with the continuing changes which will be at our doorstep. For persons in the computer industry, skills start to become obsolete after a year or so of not keeping up. But in the future, it could be six months, and then even less time.

In the past, individuals in the U.S. could decide whether they wanted to be ambitious or not. Whether to work hard or not. Whether to strive for more money, possessions, etc.--or not. And we can still make that choice. However, individual choices now have national implications and repurcussions, perhaps in the same way that they did during World War II. During that war, individual productivity was tied to the survival of the nation. The United States could not thrive and perhaps not even survive if people were to choose the easy life.

But whereas that war was limited to a particular period of time, there is no end in sight to the international competition which is only now gearing up to a full degree. Countries who fall behind, may stay behind for a long time. Countries who choose a life of leisure may end up being the servants of the trendsetters, that is, economically doing the bidding of those with the patents, the copyrights, and the industries.

In a worst case scenario there might be a frenetic pace of competition in which there was no pause. This is the most troubling aspect of the coming situation psychologically. People need balance in their lives. They need some leisure. They need time to reflect. A state of urgency (if not emergency) could be imposed theoretically, not this time by a dictator or the need to respond to a dictator as in World War II, but by the simple need not to be left behind, not to become a satellite nation to other more industrious nations which were willing to do whatever it took to be the inventors, the producers, and hence the dominators of the world economy.

This is reminiscent of the Charlie Chaplin movie, Modern Times, in which the machine conveyor belt gets the best of him . He cannot stop it. Once the machine is started, it seems unstoppable. In contrast to his movie The Great Dictator, it is now the machines (and those who run it) which are in control. Is it possible that the nations of the world could, in their competition to survive and flourish, get onto a treadmill in the world where no nation can afford to pause or get off? Is it possible that no one would dare to get off? And how might this translate down to the level of the individual? Could individuals get caught up in this same frenetic pace? What of the people who cannot deal with that new pace? It is not only cultures but also individuals which must adapt to it.

But perhaps this is looking at the situation somewhat pessimistically, from the vantage point of one living in America, where comfortable living is now rather taken for granted. It can be daunting facing the new crop of 65,000 engineers a year coming from China. But for one of those graduating students, the internet revolution flattening the Earth is indeed an opportunity to break free of poverty and isolation.

The long term consequences cannot be foreseen. But we can keep our eyes open to both the potential rewards and the dangers of the new and accelerating pace of global competition.