‘Information technology has made capitalism stronger’: Shankar Pokhrel

Kathmandu. Kathmandu–CPN (UML) general secretary Shankar Pokhrel has said the development of information technology has further strengthened capitalism thereby increasing the global labour exploitation.

Speaking at a national debate on ‘What to do next?’ organized by Socialism Study Centre Nepal here today, Pokharel said that although the information revolution has created new economy, it has been increasing inequality in the society.

Stating that the development of information technology has strengthened capitalism in a new way, he said that a large part of the world’s rich people are related to information technology and business.

“The new economy brought about by the information revolution has made capitalism younger. With the development of information technology, Lenin’s dying capitalism has become young and has become a global labour exploiter,” he said.

He said that a large proportion of the world’s richest people are related to information technology and business, which is increasing inequality in society.

“Today, 50 percent of the world’s richest people are related to information technology and business. Information technology is working to create inequality in the society,” he said.

Pokhrel said that then CPN-UML General Secretary Madan Bhandari had pursued a new political path by developing people’s multiparty democracy for the protection of communist movement.

He claimed that Nepal’s communist movement was able to keep the communist movement in the top role for three decades on the basis of people’s multiparty democracy.

He said, “Madan Bhandari adopted the policy of moving ahead through the development of people’s multiparty democracy for the protection of the communist movement. We were successful in keeping Nepal’s communist movement at the top for three decades. ’

Pokharel pointed out the need of analyzing the present challenges in a new way. According to him, the leftist movement has laid more emphasis on form rather than substance of people’s multiparty democracy.

He said, “We have laid more emphasis on form aspect while talking about people’s multiparty democracy. We ourselves could not emphasize the essence of it in the way it should have been broadcast. ’

According to him, although there is a lot of discussion on rights and political discourse in the leftist movement in Nepal, there has not been enough discussion on the economic and political issues.

He said, “In Nepal’s leftist movement, there are more issues of rights and political discourse. But in the context of economics, which is the basis of politics, we discuss only a limited number of people. The general awareness is very weak in Nepal’s leftist movement on economic and political issues. ’

He stressed the need for the leftist movement to reanalyze its policies, programmes and political perspectives in keeping with the changing world environment and technological development.