Weapons of the Weak: The Violent Consequences of Biased Technological Change Aditya Dasgupta1 Word Count: 8167 Abstract: Technological change is typically biased, producing wealth that is distributed unequally across groups in society. When the relative losers of technological change lack the political power needed to pursue redistribution through the political system, they may turn to informal tactics of protest and redistribution, include violence. The argument is applied to the green revolution in India. The spread of a new crop technology, high-yielding variety (HYV) crops, improved agricultural productivity, but also generated rising inequality between landowners and the rural poor. Drawing on a panel dataset linking district-level estimates of HYV crop adoption to digitized crime records, this paper provides evidence that the spread of the new crop technology contributed to an epidemic of dacoity (banditry), an economic crime with elements of social protest against inequality. However, the spread of the new crop technology did not benefit left- wing parties electorally, suggesting that violence was not a precursor to but substitute for redistribution at the ballot box. 1 Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California, Merced. Email:
[email protected]. Mail: 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343. Thanks to seminar participants at the Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University Pennsylvania for their valuable feedback. 1 1. Introduction Technological change is a fundamental driver of wealth and prosperity. However, technological change is also typically biased, in the sense that new technologies often increase the productivity of some factors of productions (such as land, capital, skilled labor, etc.) more than others.