Thomas Friedman Quotes

Globalization has redefined the competition for employment and incomes in the United States. Tradeoffs will have to be made between the two.

People are worried about what’s going to happen to their jobs. There’s a lot of off-shoring and out-sourcing taking place. There’s a lot more mobility of labor and of people. Unless we explain what’s happening, people will resort to protectionism and xenophobia.

The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.

Trade reform has also been linked to increased income disparity as skilled workers have captured more benefits from globalization than their unskilled counterparts.

There is a large change coming in the jobs of America and competition from abroad. We should prepare for it rather than let history overwhelm us.

Never trust an economist with your job. Learn about economics yourself. And make up your own mind about what might protect your job-and what might destroy it.

In the matter of labor, whether common or skilled, the white artisan has no chance to compete with Orientals upon their own soil, or—except in the manufactures wholly depending upon the applied sciences—upon any other soil. White labor has never been able to compete on equal terms with Oriental labor.

Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment.

This is … a time when there is increasingly no such thing as a high-wage, middle-skilled job — the thing that sustained the middle class in the last generation. Now there is only a high-wage, high-skilled job. Every middle-class job today is being pulled up, out or down faster than ever. That is, it either requires more skill or can be done by more people around the world or is being buried — made obsolete — faster than ever

We have faster growth rates for low wage industries than for high wage industries

The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time.

It's not going to be technology. It's not going to be globalization. It's going to be policy decisions and policy settings that will form the future of work.

The hope is that we'll continue to create jobs for the vast majority of people. But if the situation arises that this is less and less the case, then we need to rethink, how do we make sure that everybody can make a living?

The structural changes of globalization and automation that has created concentrated wealth among some people who have had the right skills and the right opportunities has also created extraordinary disruption and havoc among the American middle-class.

The columnist like myself or people at Stanford University don't wake up in the morning and see their job outsourced. Yet we promote free markets. But we're not sensitive to what that does to other people who don't have our privilege.

Chinese economic development has cost many American workers their jobs. That's the price of progress.

In a perfect world, people don't have to move to another country to get a higher wage. Ultimately, they need only be able to participate in producing output that is sold internationally.

Historically, industrial revolutions haven't been kind to poor people. Despite the potential benefits technology can offer, the immediate impact on the lowest-paid members of society has often been negative.

Job displacement is so huge, I'm tempted to not talk about anything other than that.

It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.

The factories that moved overseas used to provide not just high-paying jobs but also a sense of purpose and community.

The progressives like to talk a lot about poverty - and you should. However, it's the guys in the middle who have really been hurt by the global economy. The people at the bottom have been holding on to their jobs quite well, actually.

I think Obama and the economists around him have a very sophisticated understanding of both globalization and the technology revolution and the impact they're having on the world economy and they way they're creating these winner-take-all spirals.

Look at trade and automation: two competing but slightly overlapping forces in the shrinking of the duration of jobs right now. We have to be able to talk honestly about how disrupted this world is going to be, and it is crazy to mislead people and say we're going to bring back all of the big factory jobs by creating a protectionist regime.

Although globalization and technological change have disrupted traditional work arrangements, both processes have the potential to benefit everyone. The fact that they have not suggests that the wealthy have captured the benefits for themselves.