Our Civilization is descending into Anarchy!

...Or maybe I've just been sitting in front of the computer playing Civ too much (as Freed seems to have noticed :) ). I just finished reading Tom Friedman's new offering, "the World is Flat" which has some fabulous stats (I especially liked that he got Dell to give him an exact readout of the assembly of his laptop computer and where each of its parts came from and where they were assembled etc) and is quite well-researched, but left me wanting a lot more. I suppose I should have just read the first part where he discusses how the world became "flat" and then set it down and called it good. He gives ten events that have caused the spread of globalization to the "four corners" of the world, a few examples are (1) the fall of the Berlin Wall, (2) the phenomena of outsourcing and (3) off-shoring, (4) the widespread use and access to the internet, (5) software improvements etc, etc. he goes on to give examples in each; of which I found the examples of Google and the implications of the fall of the Berlin wall most interesting and those about Walmart's supply chain and 9-11 the most disturbing. In the back of my mind, while Friedman is extolling the features of the flattened world I'm questioning the implications on the environment and on the large percentage of the global population that are considered "have-nots." I felt as though there were more pages to be turned at the end explaining the downside of things, but this was not that book. It was not, I believe, Friedman's aim to tell that story. However, in the latter chapters of the book he begins discussing why the flattened world has helped some tremendously and others negligibly...which is helpful, but at the conclusion of this analysis I felt as though Friedman was asking the developing countries to pull up their bootstraps and find a comparative advantage over their competitor countries. (Like getting their debt forgiven? or erasing the vestiges of colonialism? or overhauling their export sector overnight?) For example, Mexico, key trading partner in the NAFTA block and second largest exporter to the US (after Canada) for some years has been edged out by China. Friedman's recommendation? To focus on demand and create a more business friendly atmosphere; i.e.: reduce the number of days it takes to incorporate a business etc. UGH! Mexico exports many things, but over half of the exports tot he US are AGRICULTURAL products. So then I wonder how we're going to eat in a "flat world." Obviously I'm making a gross generalization while I slide down a slippery slope. Sorry about that. I've been slowly reading this book and every day I would say to Joe, I wonder when he's going to address X, I wonder when he's going to address Y or even Z? And finally I finished, completely unsatisfied, and was sitting, playing Civ on a difficult level and I keep getting picked on by the other countries...I keep giving in to their demands for spices and territory maps, because I know if I don't, they'll just send some spearmen in to kick the crap out of my fledgling cities and if I do stop developing my marketplaces or universities, or what have you, to create war units my civilization can't grow. I spend years and years just trying to keep enough units in the cities to sustain them in one turn of fighting while trying to create an arsenal on the other civilizations border meanwhile, the cost of the units overruns my treasury and so I cannot use the money to research new advances. And suddenly its all coming clear to me. or perhaps I'm just bitter.