The Information Society

"The global society reaches out to the entire planet, but it is not planetary."

As humanity and technology advance, there is a need for skilled labor to connect different parts of the world and conduct business as part of a global production cycle. To do so requires education and migrating to major commercial, financial and technological centers, where such skills would be implemented. As the reading puts it, the people without such skills become "structurally irrelevant" because they no longer have a place to stand or earn a good living in this new economy where there existing skills have no demand.

Thus, the monetary gains are earned by the skilled laborers who live in the major centers. And referring back to last week's Appadurai reading, this is why the BJP lost the 2004 elections in India. While it was true that India was fast becoming a part of the global economy, with the exporting of jobs and services to India from other countries, the ordinary village farmer saw none of the benefits or money that modern India, which lived in the major cities, had come to enjoy. It was this frustration with the financial divide between the urban and rural areas that prompted the Indian voter to bring the more populist, center-left leaning Congress coalition into power, with the hope that the new government would improve road and communications infrastructure across the country, better connecting the rural economy with its global counterpart.