They are many advantages of Free Trade and I believe that we all have benefited as a result of no artificial barriers between participating governments to restrict the flow of goods and services on a global basis. One of the main functions of free trade has been the increase of production of goods and services because of the advantage of efficiencies generated from governments around the world that specialize in a particular production and/or labor to meet the global demand of their output. I believe from a macro approach is it a Win-Win strategy for everyone that can part take of the flat world system. So it is hard to argue with anyone that free trade is a bad idea. However, on the flip side which Mr. Friedman I think fails to really mention are the problems of the separation of third world countries from developed countries. The third world countries have extremely poor and uneducated population that can’t compete nor even know that there is a present of free trade. One of the major concerns with free trade are the exploitation of labor and cheap production are ever present on this flat world platform.
I recently read that Apple’s main supplier Foxconn plant that is located in Chengdu, China is under fire for its treatment of their employees. Apparently, the employees are committing suicide because of the working conditions within the plant. I found this appalling that now Foxconn has installed nets to catch employees that decide to jump around their facilities as an answer to the problem. Apple sales continue to rise and recently sales rose 73 percent to $ 46 billion in their fiscal first quarter. This is the dark side of free trade that most of us don’t see or even think about when we purchase goods or services on this flat world.
Finding someone with skills that can collaborate and orchestrate horizontally on our flat world would be categorized as a “new middler.” The ability to communicate and sell within a local market is definitely an added value to a new middler. A person who has an ability to be versatile learning how to adapt and change to any business situation is a competitive advantage.
“CQ+PQ>IQ” is the curiosity (CQ) and passion (PQ) for business success in our flat world and are more significant than intelligence (IQ). In creating innovation and/or new ideas are driven by curiosity the ability to find out how new innovation can make things better for all of us that have been discovered by entrepreneurs and obviously the passion is the execution of ideas into reality. Intelligence is also very important but is not the main function of innovation.
It's sad that plants in China treat their employees that way. A few years ago I had an opportunity to tour plants in Taiwan and China. The plants seemed to be okay, except for some safety issues (lack of PPE). While touring, I would always wonder if the plants were doctored because they knew we were coming. It was a neat experience nonetheless.
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