zzyy [楼主]

如果你充满创新精神，却为错过了哥伦布发现新大陆的那班船，也没能赶上20世纪初的科技发现浪潮而懊恼，总觉得该发现的几乎都已被发现，从而抱怨这个世界给你留下的探索空间过于狭小，那么请来读这本书——《世界是平的》(The World is Flat)，作者告诉你：地球的确是圆的，但世界已经是平的了！ 　　作为《纽约时报》资深的经济专栏记者，该书作者托马斯•弗里德曼(Thomas L. Friedman)曾三度获得普利策奖。该书也因为其标新立异的构思、耸人听闻的论断、旁征博引的阐述、融会多领域知识和词汇的写法而连续64周闯进亚马逊书店畅销书排行榜TOP10，曾获2005年英国“FT/高盛”财经类图书大奖。
　　
　　Globalization(全球化)
　　
　　这不是一本关于经济运作和如何发财的书，而是一本关于经济变化和走势的论著。经济的变化总是无时、无处不在，但对老百姓来说却总是无声无息，似乎一切都发生在梦里。当我们因为拥有了自己的一台台式计算机而欣喜不已时，地球另一端早已开始了笔记本的普及；当中国农人辛苦饲养了一年的鸡因Bird Flu而打不开销路时，美国的KFC却又在村口开了一家分店。作者认为其实从哥伦布证明了地球是圆的那一刻起，全球化(Globalization)的经济驱动就已经启动了。
　　在《世界是平的》第一章中，作者把这种全球化的浪潮分成了三个阶段。从哥伦布发现新大陆开始到1800年，他归纳为Globalization 1.0阶段，该阶段使世界的规模从大号“缩水”到中号：“Globalization 1.0 was about countries and muscles. That is, in Globalization 1.0 the key agent of change, the dynamic force driving the process of global integration was how much brawn(强壮的肌肉)—how much muscle, how much horsepower, wind power, or, later, steam power—your country had and how creatively you could deploy it.”
　　Globalization 2.0阶段从1800年一直到2000年，这个阶段让世界进一步缩水为小号：“The dynamic force driving global integration was multinational companies...Thanks to the steam engine and the railroad, and in the second half by the falling telecommunication costs — thanks to the diffusion of the telegraph, telephones, the PC, satellites, fiber-optic cable, and the early version of the World Wide Web.”
　　2000年，我们进入了Globaliz-ation 3.0阶段，这一阶段使得世界进一步缩小成了“微型”，平坦化了各国的竞争场地。作者把Globalization3.0阶段的独特动力归结为个人在全球范围内的合作与竞争（the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally）。
　　
　　Ten Flatteners(10辆推土机)
　　
　　本书第二章阐述了“The Ten Forces That Flattened the World”。第一大动力作者归结为“When the Wall Came Down and the Windows Went Up”（柏林墙的倒塌和Windows操作系统的建立）。政体的不同不再是阻碍经济的因素，世界两种政体随着柏林墙的倒掉而开始真正意义上的对接，这辆flattener正日益抹平政体不同造成的经济发展不平衡。同时计算机视窗的开启为全球资讯顺利流通打造了一个platform。光有平台还不行，还需要第二、第三、第四辆flattener来使这个平台真正发挥效力，让世界真正从资讯角度变平。他们分别是When Netscape Went Public(以网景公司的上市为标志的互联网运动)、The development of Workflow Software(工作流软件的开发)和Open-Sourcing, Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities(开发源码、社区的软件开发)。但这个阶段还只是表面的联络，如果你的电脑用的是WPS文字操作系统，而你的朋友用的是WORD文字处理软件，那你的信息到了他那里仍然得不到解读，所以还要开发工作流软件，让你们有共同的平台可以交流，Microsoft Word文字处理软件各种语言版本的使用就是进一步抹平世界的最好例子。
　　第五~八大动力分别是Out-sourcing(外包)，Off-shoring(离岸生产)，Supply-chaining(供应链)和In-sourcing(内包)。第5大动力“外包”使得 “Any service, call center, business support operation, or knowledge work that could be digitized could be sourced globally to the cheapest, smartest, or most efficient provider” (任何一种服务、电话中心、后勤、知识工作，只要可以数字化，就可以包给全球最便宜、最聪明、最有效率的供应商)成为可能。在这场外包大战中，印度的电脑人才是最大的赢家，很短时间内，IIT(不是IT, 是Indian IT的缩写)人才就遍布了美国的大型IT公司。中国也不甘示弱，随着入世，她正成为很多发达国家的离岸生产基地，全球的人正在享用着中国生产的各种产品。为提高自己的竞争力，其他发展中国家也不得不积极地投身这场竞争有限资金的全球经济运动中，世界因为中国的投入而变得更加平坦。
　　
　　New Ideas(新思路)
　　
　　该书从结构上采用了章回和部分并行的体例。第一至四章是全书的第一部分，是最重要的分析、总结和论述部分。第二部分包括从第五到第八章，从第二部分起，作者分别从美国、发展中国家、各大公司以及地缘政治四个角度阐述了全球化浪潮中的现象和人们应该有的心理准备和对策，在第十章还提出了各大公司在对待这个日益平坦的世界时应该采取的十个对策。
　　特别值得我们注意的是在第九章“圣母瓜达鲁佩”(The Virgin of Guadalupe)，即全书的第三部分，作者不吝笔墨地写了中国在世界变平过程中起的作用和对以中国为代表的发展中国家的经济走势进行了预测性分析，并提出了一些建议。他举了一个例子说明这种经济的改变也将相应地改变一些人们的习惯和文化。比如“...the colorful lanterns called fawanis, each with a burning candle inside, that Egyptian schoolchildren traditionally carried around during Ramadan, a tradition dating back centuries to the Fatimid period in Egypt. Kids swing the lanterns and sing songs, and people give them candy or gifts, as in America on Halloween. For centuries, small, low-wage workshops in Cairo’s older neighborhoods have manufactured these lanterns.(从法蒂玛到上个世纪的百年里，埃及小孩在伊斯兰教传统的Ramadan节上，一直提着彩色的、内有蜡烛的叫作fawanis的小灯笼走街穿巷，大人们则给他们糖果和礼物，类似美国的万圣节。几个世纪以来，这些小灯笼都是在穷街陋巷低薪作坊中出产的。)
但现在这些小灯笼已经被中国生产的更有创意、更廉价的塑料灯笼取代。这个例子说明我国的经济发展给世界经济带来的冲击和做出的贡献。
　　
　　Imagination(想象力)
　　
　　在这本书的最后一部分即第十三章，作者再次肯定了想象力的作用，用爱因斯坦的话开篇“Imagination is more important than knowledge”，用众所周知的网络对话作引子“On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog.”（two dogs talking to each other, in a New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner July 5, 1993），鼓励人们要有当年乐观的政治家推倒1989年柏林墙的勇气和远见，去打破思维上的僵化模式，大胆开辟新思路，憧憬自己的未来；而不要像2001年9•11事件所体现出的民族保护主义那样去破坏经济新秩序，阻碍世界变平的趋势。
　　
　　积极探索•开动脑筋
　　
　　全书语言简单、自然、流畅，例证详实而贴近生活，最大限度地缩短了普通百姓和“经济”这样的抽象概念之间的距离，让我们切实地觉得自己已置身于世界变平的轰轰烈烈的进程中。读过之后你会对世界知名企业如数家珍；对这半个世纪的经济发展了然于心；会重新审视自己的优势和劣势，积极探索，开动脑筋，寻求适合自己的发展之路；会对自己在21世纪的作为和它给你带来的机遇充满期待。
　　最后把书中的关于想象力的创造性和毁灭性的一段话送给大家：
　　作者这样写道：“These two dates represent the two competing forms of imagination at work in the world today: the creative imagination of 11/9 and the destructive imagination of 9/11. One brought down a wall and opened the windows of the world — both the operating system and the kind we look through. It unlocked half the planet and made the citizens there our potential partners and competitors. Another brought down the World Trade Center, closing its Windows on the World restaurant forever and putting up new invisible and concrete walls among people at a time when we thought 11. (这两个日期〈11/9和9/11〉分别代表当今世界竞争中的两种形式的想象力：11/9代表的是创造性的想象力量，9/11则代表毁坏的想象力量。这两种力量，一个推倒了一堵墙，但为我们打开了视窗，既是操作系统的视窗也是我们现实中的视窗。它解封了半个星球，使那里的人成为我们潜在的合作人和竞争者。而另一个则把世贸大厦炸掉了，关闭了世界这座大饭店所有的窗户，让我们每当想起11就会感受到它所建起的新的、看不见却牢不可摧的壁垒。)
　　下面是本书第一章的节选。
　　
　　Excerpts
　　While I Was Sleeping
　　No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: “Aim at either Microsoft or IBM.” I was standing on the first tee(发球区) at the KGA Golf Club in downtown Bangalore, in southern India, when my playing partner pointed at two shiny glass-and-steel buildings off in the distance, just behind the first green. The Goldman Sachs(高盛公司) building wasn’t done yet; otherwise he could have pointed that out as well and made it a threesome. HP and Texas Instruments had their offices on the back nine, along the tenth hole. That wasn’t all. The tee markers were from Epson, the printer company, and one of our caddies was wearing a hat from 3M. Outside, some of the traffic signs were also sponsored by Texas Instruments, and the Pizza Hut billboard on the way over showed a steaming pizza, under the headline “Gigabites of Taste!”
　　No, this definitely wasn’t Kansas. It didn’t even seem like India. Was this the New World, the Old World, or the Next World?
　　I had come to Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, on my own Columbus-like journey of exploration. Columbus sailed with the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria in an effort to discover a shorter, more direct route to India by heading west, across the Atlantic, on what he presumed to be an open sea route to the East Indies—rather than going south and east around Africa, as Portuguese explorers of his day were trying to do. India and the magical Spice Islands of the East were famed at the time for their gold, pearls, gems, and silk—a source of untold riches. Finding this shortcut by sea to India, at a time when the Muslim powers of the day had blocked the overland routes from Europe, was a way for both Columbus and the Spanish monarchy to become wealthy and powerful. When Columbus set sail, he apparently assumed the Earth was round, which was why he was convinced that he could get to India by going west. He miscalculated the distance, though. He thought the Earth was a smaller sphere than it is. He also did not anticipate running into a landmass before he reached the East Indies. Nevertheless, he called the aboriginal peoples he encountered in the new world “Indians.” Returning home, though, Columbus was able to tell his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, that although he never did find India, he could confirm that the world was indeed round.

　I set out for India by going due east, via Frankfurt. I had Lufthansa business class. I knew exactly which direction I was going thanks to the GPS map displayed on the screen that popped out of the armrest of my airline seat. I landed safely and on schedule. I too encountered people called Indians. I too was searching for the source of India’s riches. Columbus was searching for hardware—precious metals, silk, and spices—the source of wealth in his day. I was searching for software, brainpower, complex algorithms, knowledge workers, call centers, transmission protocols, breakthroughs in optical engineering—the sources of wealth in our day. Columbus was happy to make the Indians he met his slaves, a pool of free manual labor.
　　I just wanted to understand why the Indians I met were taking our work, why they had become such an important pool for the outsourcing of service and information technology work from America and other industrialized countries. Columbus had more than one hundred men on his three ships; I had a small crew from the Discovery Times channel that fit comfortably into two banged-up vans, with Indian drivers who drove barefoot. When I set sail, so to speak, I too assumed that the world was round, but what I encountered in the real India profoundly shook my faith in that notion. Columbus accidentally ran into America but thought he had discovered part of India. I actually found India and thought many of the people I met there were Americans. Some had actually taken American names, and others were doing great imitations of American accents at call centers and American business techniques at software labs.
　　Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife, and only in a whisper.
　　“Honey,” I confided, “I think the world is flat