First, Fukuyama's end of history,then the assertion of American preeminence of Benjamin Barber's McDonald's bringing the threat of a counter-jihad; we now have Thomas Friedman's thesis of the rapidity of the Internet and financial transactions taking over the world; and just recently the cultural symbolism of American basketball creating an American goliath ripe for the aim of underdog David's slingshot; finally, in a delightful New York Times Arts piece, the observation of hip-hop music as a globalizing unity. All of these writers are reflecting on the increasing globalization of the world-American style. Messrs. Fukuyama, Barber, Friedman, LaFeber and Strauss (among many others) place the fate of the globe in the lap of American cultural and technological development and dominance. The collapse of the rivalries of the Cold War, as the central feature of international politics and cultural contrast, has allowed Western cultural norms, as manifested in the free market, to assert that hegemony transnationally, but not without some foot dragging.

Thomas Friedman's contrasting notions of the emerging symbolic Lexus crowd (the upper middle electronically tuned-in Americans, and their European and Asian counterparts), with the cultivators of the olive tree (the cultural conservators and seeming humble plodders) is both a startling image and a damning indictment. The older construct of the "haves" and the "have nots," which satisfied the description of the world in the 50's and 60's, remains a key to Friedman's analysis. But Friedman, et al, have taken it a giant step forward, and they reveal the accelerated nature of free market capitalism, and its inherent democratization, which increases the possibility of the seeming smothering of poorer, less developed nations by the dominance of the US imposition of globalization. Anecdotally, through autobiographical vignettes, Friedman piles on his evidence of the Western economic control of the world's financial and information markets-and, therefore, the economies of the world I through electronic advances. The thesis also suggests the classic evolutionary notion of progress: we are on the inevitable, and constantly changing, path to a bigger and better world, economically, politically - and by implication, culturally. America is the beacon to lead the way.

Running with the "electronic herd," Friedman suggests that control of the cybersystem is the control of the future. Not all of the peoples of the world, or their elected or assumptive leaders, will put on the "golden straitjacket" (the acceptance of international free market regulations as dictated by the "electronic herd") and they thus willfully encourage decline and possible disappearance. While recognizing that not all are willing adherents of this seeming progressive movement, Friedman sees little hope for the cultivators of the olive tree as a centralizing feature of continuing civilization, but he is aware that the cultivators of the olive tree must be included in any change. Widespread protest demonstrations over globalization, American style, continues to rear up, demanding both recognition and a slowing down of the process: Frenchmen (always ready to preserve their once glorious, but rapidly fading, prominence) dump tons of apples on McDonald's sites, along with farmers protesting genetically altered food products. There are revolts against established, but tenuous, regimes. There is a rise of nationalistic sentiments in the face of what many believe to be American cultural hegemony, and there is growing evidence of environmental degradation resulting from economic survival policies by nations attempting to catch up with the "giants" or just trying to remain afloat. These are only some of the "braking" devices being used to slow down the globalization" bullet train from careening down the 19th- and 20th- century railroad tracks.

What many historians once referred to as the "cultural lag" has now become (if I may paraphrase) a "computerized giant leap forward." All of the prominent writers of the globalization genre, as well as those who raise questions about it, agree that the cyberworld is not only here to stay; they also recognize its power to speed up the operation of the world. In various degrees of recognition, there is trepidation that many of the olive cultivators, or their children, will not have computers at the ready any time soon. That ravine of technological destitution may be the future disaster that confronts our world. The rapid decline of both indigenous peoples and their languages and cultures may well be the foretelling of the future: the speed of compueconomies forcing the less technically ambitious or educated cultural groups to further recede, and to disappear into the maw of cyberman's increasingly single global culture. What looks today like an American domination of that culture may not be the future. The arrival of instant computer translation programming may well determine that it will be a Cyberculture" implemented through cyberlanguage, cybervalues, and cyberwarfare. It is almost comical to image wars being fought by computer hackers (already occurring on a more limited scale) rather than landmines and nuclear weapons. Nations will be brought to their knees by electronic wizardry: blockading websites, "viraling" rival systems, destroying servers, "debeaming" orbiting satellites, etc.

A most telling example of this future prospect (the transition from the present to the future) was Friedman's story of the Brazilian John Bunyan who proudly showed him the "new" village that the government had developed in hopes of attracting tourists. The area had once been a thriving logging enterprise, but that had been deflected by the environmentalists. Juan Bunyan looked squarely at Friedman and asked a key question: What hope is there for me? My father logged; my children will have a computer; but what about me? How do I survive? This is a strapping, ambitious and eager young man caught in the cyberlag. Translate that for those nations that, even under present ecopolitical conditions, are struggling to survive, and have little or no "electronic herd" plugged into the Internet. Many of these nations' schools are still attempting to find enough chalk, paper and pencils to equip their children with the rudiments of existence. Keyboarding is not high in the educator's reality in many of these schools. The chasm that divides Friedman's two worlds is one that can only be bridged by time (is it going too fast?) and the willingness of people to constantly adjust to a more rapidly changing existence (the historical precedent is not promising, and may be the reason why Fukuyama says that it has ended).

Is there a balance between the olive growers and the drivers of the Lexus? Can these two worlds coexist compatibly? Friedman's optimism says yes; and the model is America- the electronically controlled wheat fields of Kansas and Garden City hoedown can not only exist side by side; indeed, they must. It will take different forms of the democratic process to achieve it, free markets in the real world are neither free nor necessarily open; democracy continues to be the most difficult political-economic system to operate, but the very nature of perfecting it is sometimes the simple matter of a putting the olive grower behind the wheel of a Lexus.