Page 234 - The Drucker Lectures

28

On Globalization

2001

et me start out by saying that maybe six weeks ago I had a
Lvisit from an old student. Forty years ago, he was a young
Taiwanese. In the meantime, he has built a very successful busi-
ness in Taiwan, and for the last seven years or so has been in
Shanghai, where he is now head of a very large joint-venture
firm. And I asked him, “What has happened? What’s the most
important thing that has happened in China the last three to
five years?” And he thought for about five seconds and then said,
“That we now consider owning an automobile a necessity and
not a luxury.” That is what globalization means.
It is not an economic event; it’s a psychological phenomenon.
It means that all of the developed West’s values—its mindset
and expectations and aspiration—are seen as the norm. Note
that my friend did not say everybody in Shanghai now owns
a car. Far from it. He did not say that everybody in Shanghai
expects to own a car. They’re at the stage where they are shift-
ing from bicycles to motorbikes, which is deadlier. He said that
owning a car is considered a necessity, and that is what global-
ization actually means. It is a fundamental change in expecta-
tions and values.
And what are some of the implications? Let me say there are
still parts of the world where globalization has not happened.
Africa, certainly not yet. But a few years back we were in Para-

[ 215