Elections were held in five Indian States recently, the results of which will be declared on March 11, and are important. The political rhetoric during campaigning regrettably focused on the same old, ideological issues, instead of talking about things that really ought to be discussed.

Is our polity living in La La Land?

There are deep structural changes happening in the world today, led primarily by technology. Now, technology is a two-edged sword, and we must embrace the good part of it but be aware of the bad part of it as well.

Globally, the biggest problem is that of inadequate jobs. As a human society, we have just about reached the upper limit of gains to be made from labour productivity. It is improving productivity that provided the higher standards of living. Future productivity gains would come from machines, which are fast replacing human jobs, especially repetitive tasks which the machines can learn from.

Paucity of jobs leads to political rhetoric, of the sort witnessed in the case of Donald Trump’s attempts to bring jobs back, by restricting H1B visas, or deporting illegal immigrants. The truth is that jobs are not coming from manufacturing because technology has changed the world.

Jobs would come largely from small businesses, services, and from investment in infrastructure. The ADB has estimated that emerging Asian economies would need to spend $26 trillion on infrastructure by 2030; that’s around $1.5 trillion a year.

So, the profile of jobs in future would be more in the nature of assignments, or frequent job changes, rather than a cradle to grave type of job with a large conglomerate. Charles Handy, in his book ‘The Elephant and the Flea’ had talked of this trend years ago. This requires more flexible labour laws and more institutions to impart the different skill-sets which would be required to find jobs in a constantly changing environment.

Yet, political rhetoric did not address these issues.

As mentioned, technologies can have positive and negative uses.

Consider how the technology of horizontal fracking has transformed the energy sector. The US, once a large importer of crude oil, now has, thanks to fracking, the wherewithal to export it. OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia tried to flood the market with cheap oil, believing that the drop in crude oil prices would kill the independent fracking industry.

It didn’t. The fracking industry innovated and brought down its break-even cost. It is now producing more oil/gas than when it started.

If oil prices stay low, as one expects they will, then India’s forex bill will be curtailed, benefitting the country. Add to this the technological improvements in renewable energy companies.

But technology also has its dangers, as demonstrated in the assassination of Kim Jong Nam by two lady assassins (reportedly paid $90 for what they believed was a TV prank), using a chemical nerve agent called VX. Just a drop of VX sufficed to kill him in 20 minutes.

Now that the State elections are over, one hopes our polity will concentrate on economic reforms, putting available technologies to best use, and look into what needs to be done to provide skill-sets for jobs in the new environment.

(The writer is India Head, Euromoney Conferences. The views are personal.)