Did I Say "War Mongering Corporate Whore" Out Loud?

Every couple of years, a book appears which becomes the literary darling of Silicon Valley. Ten years ago it was ethically neutral books on marketing strategy like "Crossing the Chasm". More recently, the books capturing the imagination of the technorati are those that help them justify bad behavior.

A couple of years ago, it was "Who Moved My Cheese", an odious "self-help" book whose surface message is simply "shit happens; deal with it", but whose disturbing subtextual message to workers is this: "You are nothing more than rats in a maze; getting screwed by your corporate masters is the natural order of things, and there is nothing you can do about it."

The latest entry on the reading list for soul-less corporate automata is Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat." According to today's Mercury News, the book is the hot seller in the Valley, with tech executives giving copies to their minions and even so-called Progressives like Steve Westly singing its praises. For the record, I have not read Friedman's book but I have been a regular reader of his New York Times column (at least until the Times started charging for electronic access). My dislike for Friedman stems from both his support for the war and for his simple-minded reduction of complex global issues to glib catch-phrases.

Friedman's incessant cheer-leading for the positive aspects of globalization, while constantly ignoring the negative impacts on the American middle-class, gives the group-thinking CEOs license to continue the stupid, greedy, short-sighted policies that are propelling American society downward in the race to the bottom.

Idiots.