July 28, 2016
Thomas Friedman moves beyond his Flat World to divide the world into “Web People,” who he likes, and “Wall People” who he holds in contempt. Donald Trump is naturally the lodestar of the Wall People, but the category goes well beyond the people who want to put up a huge wall on the border with Mexico.
Someone with nothing to do with their lives could perhaps try to find some coherence in Friedman’s definitions, but the most obvious definition of Wall People is people who don’t share his vision of the world, which he attributes to web people.
“In particular, Web People understand that in times of rapid change, open systems are always more flexible, resilient and propulsive; they offer the chance to feel and respond first to change. So Web People favor more trade expansion, along the lines of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and more managed immigration that attracts the most energetic and smartest minds, and more vehicles for lifelong learning.
“Web People also understand that while we want to prevent another bout of recklessness on Wall Street, we don’t want to choke off risk-taking, which is the engine of growth and entrepreneurship.”
Okay, so let’s work through some logic here. If you want to see a freer flow of ideas and technology, by replacing patent and copyright monopolies with more modern ways of promoting innovation and creative work, then you are a Wall Person. After all, Friedman’s Web People wouldn’t know how to get by in the world without these relics from the feudal guild system.
If this means that life-saving drugs, which would be cheap in a free market, are priced beyond the reach of the people who need them, well get used to Thomas Friedman’s world. If it means that we have to turn the whole world into copyright cops to ensure that Disney can collect its royalties on Mickey Mouse, that’s a small price to pay to keep the Web People wealthy.
And if you think that highly paid professionals, like doctors, dentists, and lawyers should face the same sort of international competition as textile workers and autoworkers, then you’re a Wall Person. After all, the TPP doesn’t do a thing about the rules that prevent doctors from practicing medicine in the United States unless they completed a residency program in the United States. (Web People apparently believe that you can’t be a competent doctor unless you complete a residency program in the United States — or they just want to restrict competition so that our doctors can make twice as much money as doctors in other wealthy countries.)
And, you’re a Wall Person if, like Bernie Sanders, you think that Wall Street should be subject to a sales tax like most other sectors of the economy. After all, this would reduce the huge paychecks of many of the Web People who Friedman likes so much. Thomas Friedman is happy to have a bloated financial sector if it helps keep his Web People wealthy.
Anyhow, that’s the world according to Thomas Friedman. If you want to make the economy more efficient in ways that take away money from his friends, you’re a Wall Person. He would probably call you something worse, but they wouldn’t print it in the NYT.
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