We live in an era in which globalization is said to be benefiting elites in countries around the world while leaving behind the masses who lack the education or skills to compete. And yet, 2013 will be remembered as the year in which the streets of many a capital were filled with angry and dispossessed elites.
The crowds who called for revolution in Cairo, Istanbul, Bangkok and Kiev last year were not the impoverished losers of globalization. They were, for the most part, the economic winners: middle-class, educated, secular, English-speaking. They've had the backing of big businessmen who have been enriched by trade, and, as often as not, the sympathy of the Obama administration and other Western governments.
So why are they rebelling?
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