Technology created wealth, but also people power.

Former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper gave a keynote address in Delhi on 19 January, writes Professor Vivek Dahejia. In his speech Harper mentioned his meeting with Lech Walesa, who founded Solidarity, an independent trade union, and was the President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. On being asked how confident he was about the success of his protest in 1980, Walesa said that he was very confident because the Poles did not believe in Communism, because Pope John Paul II was Polish and because the controls of the Soviet Union would not cope with improvement in technology, especially Information Technology. The forces of globalization that destroyed the Soviet Union have turned against globalization itself. "In the Western world, the battle lines have been drawn, as Harper argued, between a transnational, multicultural, polyglot elite -- an elite who believe in open borders, migration and free trade because 'we are the people who can cross borders' -- and folk who 'live within borders, on the ground, in flyover regions'. These are people whose concerns are local, not national nor global, and who cherish local not multicultural, identities -- identities which they believe are threatened by the flattening and homogenizing forces of globalization," writes Dahejia. People are getting more polarized because they can receive and transmit their views over the internet which enables people with similar beliefs to congregate. Harper advised against labeling these people as 'stupid or bigoted'. But that is precisely what is happening. In UP politicians are openly asking Muslims to vote against the BJP, which is labeled as a Hindutva party. Mobilising Muslims against Hindus is their version of secularism and if Hindus protest they are labeled as fascist. Harper probably had Brexit and the election victory of Donald Trump in mind when gave that speech. Professor Barry Eichengreen wrote that Trump most closely resembles Enoch Powell who warned against open immigration in his famous "Rivers of Blood" speech in Britain in 1968. Why was Powell not as successful as Donald Trump? Because he did not have access to Twitter to spread his views over those of the establishment, he was not against the establishment as Trump is and the people were not as dissatisfied with the system. The reason is that economies were growing prior to 1970 and benefited the lower third the most. Since 1980 the rich have got richer while the poor have stagnated. The sixties were also the years of the hippy movement, which was against the establishment, but was more against conscription and the brutal war in Vietnam. Perhaps, Bob Dylan's words are more true today than when he wrote them. The times really are a changing.