PATRICK KLUIVERT DDIBA’S
WISDOM OF THE WEEK

HUMOROUS N’ RIGHT ON (OOPS DID I SAY FIGHT ON?) NOPE^^
In a thoughtful and provocative book titled “The Lexus and the Olive,” Thomas Friedman, the journalist and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, has put forward what he terms the “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”. Friedman observes that, as of the time he was writing in the late 1990s, no two countries had gone to war with each other after they each hosted a branch of the McDonald’s fast-food franchise. He use this humorous observation to articulate a serious proposition: “Today’s globalization system significantly raises the costs of countries using was as a means to pursue honor, react to fear or advance their interests” (Friedman 1999, pp.197; also see pp. 195-96) Friedman is careful to point out that he does not believe that contemporary economic absolutely ends the risk of war , and he recognizes that commentators in earlier periods mistakenly believed that international economic integration had obviated the danger of war. However, he does emphasize that he thinks that contemporary globalization is different at least in degree from that of earlier periods; “The bottom line is this: If in the previous era of globalization nations in the system thought twice before trying to solve problems through warfare, in this era of globalization they will think about it three times” (Friedman 1999, pp.198)