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The Lexus and the Olive Tree, T. FRIEDMAN, Harper Collins, London (1999). xix+394pp. L19.99 (hbk). ISBN 0 00 257014 9.
Thomas Friedman is a senior foreign affairs writer for the New York Times. His From Beirut to Jerusalem was a far-sighted best seller about the Arab Israeli conflict. This book on globalization has attracted a more mixed reception, but definitely deserves the attention of readers of this journal. The title encapsulates his central idea that the world is divided between the unifying pressure of world market forces, symbolized by the Japanese Lexus luxury car on the one hand, and on the other hand the social pressure to preserve local values, cultures and ways of life, symbolized by battles over whose family owns the land this olive tree stands on.
Friedman acknowledges that the roots of globalization go back to the nineteenth century, but argues that its nature has been transformed by the Internet and the end of the Cold War, and it is now the dominant phenomenon of our time. The Cold War allowed archaic corrupt dictatorial regimes to continue, financed by the US or the USSR. Now only the fittest survive. He insists that the 'electronic herd' of the financial markets will impose the 'golden straitjacket' of sound free market economic policies, though with roughness as well as justice. The 'democratisation' (sic) of financial markets has punished...