Friedman's "Golden Arches Theory"
Reader comment on item: The education of Thomas Friedman

Submitted by J. Kanatzar (United States), Apr 21, 2003 at 04:05

On page 195 of THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE (published in1999), Friedman talks about "The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention." In his discussion, he states that "no two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's." I would like to ask Friedman about his current analysis about India-Pakistan- apparently Friedman forgot to review his evidence before the book was published that Pakistan is not void of McDonald's, and hasn't been since 1998. I know that the book had probably gone to the publishers before Friedman could fix the error, but it raises the question of what his analysis is today.

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