Flatland or Flat World?

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Creating a New Global Equilibrium

by Alex Hutchins

In 1884, an English schoolmaster, Edwin Abbott, wrote a novella entitled, Flatland, regarding what life would be like in a two-dimensional world.  In Flatland, classes are distinguished using hearing, feeling, and sight recognitions.  Several films have been made about Flatland, including a feature film in 2007.  While life in Flatland is entertaining and challenges us to think, it is especially popular among physicists, mathematicians, and computer science enthusiasts.

However clever the concept of a flatland is to everyone, we all know that “we” live in a three-dimensional world (some believe multiple dimensions but that is another post altogether) of height, length, depth, with a 4^th dimension of time.  And, it is in this dimensional that my comments refer.  Unlike Flatland, we live in a Flat World similar to but different from the flat world that ancient mariners believed existed around the time of Columbus. 

My flat world is the same flat world that Thomas Friedman wrote about in his book, The World is Flat.  Friedman writes that once the Berlin Wall was torn down, the East Germans could see what the rest of the world had and amazingly started wanting it too.  While this increase in demand is good for some, unfortunately, it is not good for all and America, for the first time in her existence, is finding herself in a position where (on several fronts) she has to run either to stay ahead or to catch up.

Interestingly, we see several phenomenons occurring here.  The first is an increase in global demand putting a strain on global supply thus creating a propensity for an increase in prices to occur, resulting in the possibility of regional and/or global inflation.  The second is the availability of a cheap global labor market, allowing for either stabilization in global prices or a reduction from which Americans have already benefited. The third has a dual concept where more global countries are now seeing the advantages of a both a free-market enterprise system as well as having a democratic form of government.

  U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined democracy as: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  Not only has perpetuating a democracy (actually a democratic republic) been an integral part of our domestic policies for years, it is part of our international policy as well as evidence by, “Democracy and respect for human rights have long been central components of U.S. foreign policy.  Supporting democracy not only promotes such fundamental American values as religious freedom and worker rights, but also helps create a more secure, stable, and prosperous global arena in which the United States can advance its national interests.”

But, what are our national interests?