In recent years the phrase “Made in China” has struck fear into the hearts of western workers and politicians. As China has swelled in economic might – to a point where it will soon outpace the US in size, according to data released this week – its factories have undercut western rivals, causing manufacturing jobs to move.
But it is not just widgets that western policy makers need to watch, but the worldwide web. For if you want to understand why debates about inequality are all the rage in the Anglo-Saxon political world – and why Thomas Piketty’s new book on the subject, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has struck such a powerful chord – it is important to realise that the face of globalisation is undergoing a subtle, but important, shift.
Most notably, the internet is transforming cross-border business. And while this process of digitisation creates opportunity – Mumbai entrepreneurs who would once have printed T-shirts might now concoct their own designs and sell them around the world – it also threatens to create new categories of winners and losers (some western designers may find themselves undercut by their Indian peers). Hence the interest in inequality.