The Competition is Coming

In his new book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman argues that the world is being flattened by a combination of technological advances and political changes that are leveling the playing field for those in countries like China, India, and Russia. With lower wages, more competitive healthcare costs, and a large and well-educated workforce, these countries are attracting jobs that used to be firmly planted in the US.

The US is also falling behind in key areas. The number of students studying science and engineering is dropping while the demand for those same students is rising. The foreign students and technology workers who used to flock here and stay here are now being kept out because of post-9/11 security restrictions. We've opted to cut funding in the sciences and left education spending stagnant in order to provide tax cuts.

Friedman juxtaposes these post-9/11 actions against Kennedy's call to action in the face of the Cold War which lead to more young people pursuing careers in science and engineering and our becoming more competitive as a nation. When under attack on 9/11, our president stood up and told us to keep shopping.

On his many travels taken while researching the book, Friedman found an African proverb posted in Mandarin on the factory of an American-owned auto parts manufacturer in China:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Whether we're the lion or the gazelle, we need to start running. Americans need to quit dwelling on the past and start planning for a future that involves out-sourcing, globalization, and all those scary things American workers don't want to hear. The sooner we wake up and start moving, the more likely it is that we will survive on a global playing field.