THE LEXUS OR ANARCHY :

States of Discord : The worldviews of Thomas Friedman and Robert Kaplan are about as different as a modem and a bayonet. (Foreign Policy, Spring 2002)

Tom Friedman : The dirty little secret about globalization—and it takes a lot of countries a long time to figure it out—is that the way to succeed in globalization is to focus on the fundamentals. It’s not about the wires or about bandwidth or about modems. It’s about reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s about churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. It’s about rule of law, good governance, institution building, free press, and a process of democratization. If you get these fundamentals right, then the wires will find you, and the wires will basically work. But if you get them wrong, nothing will save you.

[...]

Robert D. Kaplan : I agree that good things are going to happen in a more global world (and humanists will duly celebrate them), but foreign policy crises are about what goes wrong. In the short run, I’m pessimistic. Remember that poverty does not lead to revolutions—development does. The revolutions in Mexico and France were preceded by years of dramatic and dynamic economic development, as well as urbanization and population movements. And what have we seen for the last 10 years, which Tom has described so well in his columns? Incredible dynamism, with middle classes emerging in China, Indonesia, and Brazil. But this development will not automatically lead to West German–style democracies. They
may eventually, but for the next 20 or 30 years, they will experience more and more turbulence.

This is an interesting, though somewhat platitudinous, exchange between two of the most influential foreign affairs journalists in America. We've reviewed Mr. Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree and Mr. Kaplan's Coming Anarchy and Warrior Politics. As you'll see, we have our quarrels with both men, but Mr. Kaplan seems to have the better of this argument. Yes, globalization, as Mr. Friedman says, seems to be an inexorable force that will affect everyone, everywhere, but as Mr. Kaplan says, this process is likely to be awfully ugly for a while.

If you just take a look at the "fundamentals" that Mr. Friedman says you need to get right in order for globalization to work in your nation, it seems obvious that many nations will require a genuine revolution before they can reach that point. In fact, mightn't it be proper to look at the current clash with Islam as the very bloody death throes of a culture that doesn't want to adopt these fundamentals? Mr. Friedman's blithe assumption that you just tinker with the fundamentals of a religion and you're ready for globalization seems to ignore the fact that most believers take their own fundamentals pretty seriously and don't much want to switch to ours. The process by which they are forced to switch, either by the pressure from within (of a population envious of the standard of living in the West), or from without (at the barrel of the West's guns) can't help but be violent and disruptive.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 7, 2002 3:18 PM