Traders, Speculators, and Captains of Industry

In this deeply researched work, Jackson challenges standard explanations for how India has sought to attract and channel foreign investment…compelling. – Pratap Bhanu Mehta * Foreign Affairs *
An original and carefully researched contribution to the study of Indian political economy. By showing how judgments about the legitimacy of different forms of capitalism have shaped foreign investment policy over more than a century, Jackson offers a compelling alternative to conventional accounts centered on nationalism and liberalization. – Arijit Mazumdar * Developing Economies *
In the end, what stays with the reader is the cumulative force of the argument: that the categories through which Indian policymakers have judged business actors for two centuries are moral and political rather than economic and technical. Jackson demonstrates that the frames of organizing capitalist development in India are neither derivative of Western frameworks nor simply reactions against them but have their own genealogy and internal logic. – Manjusha Nair * Social Forces *
A keen and opportune contribution to the political economy of development…offers a historically grounded perspective that ought to resonate with scholars of political economy and South Asian studies. – A. A. Batabyal * Choice *
A revelatory examination of investment policy in India, shedding new light on how beliefs about morality inform a range of financial behaviors and influence the flow of capital. Jason Jackson has produced a superb work of social science, weaving together finance, political economy, sociology, and history with contemporary reporting. A reminder of how meanings make our markets. – Frederick F. Wherry, coauthor of Credit Where It’s Due
Erudite and original. Jason Jackson argues that economic policymaking in India is influenced by a moral economy favoring ‘modern’ capitalists—those seen as likely to grow industries and develop opportunities at home. This is a must-read for both students of Indian political economy and those interested in how ideas shape economic policymaking more broadly. – Atul Kohli, coauthor of Democracy and Inequality in India
A masterful and absolutely unique analysis of how foreign investment policies in India have been powerfully shaped by economic ideas and moral beliefs. On one level, Jackson clearly traces how changing interpretations of ‘legitimate’ capitalist activity underwrote different policy paradigms. On another level, he uses the Indian case to generate new insights into classic developmental debates about how to morally evaluate economic behavior. – Patrick Heller, author of The Labor of Development
This persuasively argued and conceptually innovative work will significantly reshape how scholars across disciplines understand the political economy of modern India. With theoretical sophistication and clarity, Jackson successfully explains the puzzle of the Indian state’s changing attitudes to both foreign and domestic capital in a way that is sure to have wide applicability. – Mircea Raianu, author of Tata

Jason Jackson is Associate Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Political Economy Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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