Our Borderless World, According to Kenichi Ohmae

The concept of globalization has become a reality, slowly but surely the world is eliminating borders and becoming one nation with no real identity. The largest amounts of money are moved daily across the world by multinational corporations that dont necessarily belong to Japan, Europe or the United States, the Triad as Kenichi Ohmae[1]puts it; instead they belong to the world, to one single nation. More than 190 countries in the world are acquiring homogeneity and accepting the idea that to succeed barriers must be eliminated and isolation would never be the solution.

There are hundreds of trade agreements across the globe, the idea of remaining independent and self sufficient seems more and more obsolete, and has the shape of a revolving door taking nations just going around its problems with no reasonable solution for its development.

Resources, demographics, healthy economic and political environment and everything else needed to be self sufficient are the characteristics of a country that is merely defined in a utopia. No nation has it all to be completely isolated and still develop. The path that the world is taking towards globalization makes the odds that a country once will be able to achieve this, minimum. Governments are also slaves of this by virtually giving up sovereignty to attain economic development. Power has become less and less centralized in political bodies, multinationals are eating them alive and it seems that for once the government is really working for its people. They are opening the doors for the best players, allowing them to provide alternatives to people in the country, enabling jobs to be generated, and granting opportunities for the future and positively stimulating standards of living. The old trend where governments rule the world is coming to its end; it can not longer be tolerated before nations fall into crisies that only harm the people living there. MNCs have the last word and the power to control the economy of the world; this is the reality and governments are facing it.

Nonetheless, political bodies across the globe still show reluctance and believe that natural resources will be the savior for any adversity that comes in the way. They still try to hide the fact that this system is no longer working and resist giving up their power; in fact they are skeptical and still stick to the belief that multinationals want to steal their pot of gold. From this point, Kenichi Ohmae develops a concept on how certain nations want to be left alone and by no means sharing its pot of gold.[2] In reality, corporations have only one objective which is profit, unfortunately governments are naive enough and cannot understand the other side of the coin. Business is composed by two parties or more, if a country is doing poorly so is the corporation, and this

time not even those great natural resources will help. Corporations pay taxes and regardless of the fact that part of the profit generated is sent back to its main headquarters, knowledge is left at the host country. Multinationals do not have to be a threat but to be considered an opportunity for growth and development.

Countries rich in resources seem to follow a particular trend of resistance and isolation; some others have come to realize that this is not a coincidence and have worked towards better ways for development and involvement in the global economy. Better is a risky word but it gains credibility when facts are there to back it up, even more when numbers are given and compared. Ohmae refers to it as the resource illusion, and implies the idea of having resources and automatically being competitive. These resources are useless when no value is added to them, no matter how much oil, water, or gold a particular country has, if the wrong use is given not many successful outcomes will be produced. Countries need to specialize at what they do best and give the opportunity to its citizens to have access to the products that other countries do best and can offer at a more competitive price and quality.

Ohmae gives the example of the auto industry in Malaysia and India where governments still try by all means to block alternatives for automakers to export their products to these countries by imposing extremely high tariffs on them[3]. These attitudes leave people with fewer choices and opportunities to obtain quality for what they pay. So the governments hide behind the fact that these products are not expensive and they represent the national car. Nonetheless, they turn out to be even more expensive in the long run for its poor performance and high demands for maintenance. People are not exclusively unaware of this anymore, the media helps them to realize of what is going on around the globe, they demand and they want more than cars that dont run pro perly and natural resources.

The Author of The Borderless World, suggests that a country that suffers from a providers mentality is only letting go opportunities for development, You grow it or pick it or mine it or collect and then you cart it away[4]. A clear example mentioned is the Jamaican coffee Blue Mountain that in Japan costs 4 times more when compared to Brazilian coffee. In reality Brazil has much more to offer than just coffee but it takes more than its natural resources.

Many Latin American countries lack the technical expertise and resources needed to analyze trade

issues and develop good negotiating approaches. Consequently, Latin American negotiators often find themselves in trade talks defending their "national interests" without knowing the full implications of the commitments under discussion[5]

As mentioned before, it is really easy to judge and say that opening borders is better than trying to be self sufficient and live an illusion where resources are everything that matters. However, success is reflected in numbers when we look at cases where countries become participative and active in global activities and playing a global role. Business generates business and stimulates the economy no party obtains more benefits that the host country. Especially in a mix labor economy, they are the ones that acquire the know-how and the experience, that at the same time demands education, and later on we have a whole new set of factors that will be impacted positively in the way for development. It is important to think on the amount of people as well as money generated that depends on trade issues. The richest countries in the world -and not in resources- are not by coincidence ranked as the countries with highest incidence of exports. As the list goes down it becomes harder to identify the countries in the world map. On the other hand, countries that get involved in free trade agreements are also proven to increase their levels of economic development.

Countries with provider mentality need to understand that their pot of gold will get them no where if value is not added to it. The best strategy is to do what you do best and let others do the same. Eventually globalization will hit everyone if countries are not prepared for it, the challenge will be greater and their people are the ones that will suffer the most.
POSTED BY CYNTHIA ANGUIANO AT 3:04 PM