I don't claim to be a seer. But sometimes, thanks to my history degree, I guess right.

That appears to be the case in India, where the Congress Party appears to have won elections most tipped it to lose.

My own view remains what it was on Monday. Computers are having the same effect machines had a century ago. They save on labor costs, raising productivity. But that means there are fewer jobs. And a demand comes from all workers, especially those left out of the prosperity, for equity.

In many countries this gave rise to socialism, even communism. In our country it gave rise to the Progressives, the Populists, and (after a complete systemic collapse) the New Deal.

There are great lessons in this result for America.

Americans have spent most of the last year looking on India in awe, fearing that outsourcing was hollowing-out our economy.

In fact India's economy, too, was being hollowed-out. Those operator jobs we lost were golden over there, but that exacerbated class tensions, creating a new class of young, relatively wealthy, rootless people tied to consumerism, in a nation filled with subsistance farmers.

What happens now? My guess is these new "elite" kids are going to have a tough time. Their taxes are going to go up. They're going to be criticized. To whom much is given much is expected, they will be told. And they won't like it, not one bit.

This election, in my view, is a parent scolding a child, and to the extent it is we should rejoice in it. Don't you secretly wish Mrs. Hilton or Mrs. Spears had turned their young girls over their knees a few more times? (That's Mrs. Hilton's child, Paris, by the way, at the Teen Choice Awards.)