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Q. WHEN DID THIS SORT OF SHIFT BEGIN IN THE WORLD, FROM LOOKING AT GREED AS SOMETHING NEGATIVE TO SOMETHING THAT IS MORE COMPLICATED? A. The shift actually took place at the same time, in
the 16th and 17th centuries, both in India and in western Europe. The Islamic world, on the other hand, was very trade friendly. It was geared towards encouraging and protecting commerce
through the legal system. Until the 14th century, the centre of European economic activity was the Mediterranean region, especially the Italian city-states. They were commerce-based. But in
the 15th century, a shift takes place, where suddenly the centre of economic activity in Europe shifts to northwestern Europe, to Belgium and Holland, where traders were put in charge of
charter cities (specific areas that are granted a special jurisdiction to create a new governance system). These were not new. Charter cities arose in the ninth century in Europe. In central
Europe, they were institutionalised under what is called the Magdeburg law (gives the privilege of self-government). These were cities meant to protect commerce and comme-rcial specialists
from predation by political elites because traders are easy to go after. They have money. You can imprison them. So these cities were built. In India, we had the same kind of cities even two
centuries earlier. The Nagarams and the Patnams were basically trade cities that were given by the Chola kings and the Chalukya kings to merchants so they would essentially build these
cities. When the Islamic rule came to India, you did not really need charter cities to create commerce. Every city could be commercial because Islam was more commerce friendly. But Europe
saw a fight between religious elites, political elites and the economic elites. And it is around the 15th or 16th century that you actually start to see economic elites controlling vast
amounts of capital because the shift from the Italian region to the Belgian region was the shift from commerce to finance. And finance is what trumps everything. The shift was happening in
India around the same time. There is a story from the Mughal Empire during the time of Akbar. The emperor’s ships were blocked because the Portuguese barricaded the port of Surat. Akbar’s
mother was on the vessel, wanting to go to Mecca. The Mughals had their own sea admirals who were the Siddhis of Janjira. In the Mughal system, they can be the admirals of the Mughals, but
they are also their own separate agents. So they had deals with the Portuguese. Even though they could have told them to shift, and the Portuguese would have listened, the Siddhis stayed out
of the fight. They knew that Akbar had no power on the sea to punish the Siddhis and the Siddhis could not be defeated because their fortress was impregnable. Finally, a Hindu trader (whose
name we do not know) came forward and he said, “I’ll solve the impasse.” He told the Portuguese, “If you let the ship go, I would adjust the interest rates and lower it by 1-2 per cent.” He
informed Akbar that the problem had been solved. In return, Akbar gave the merchant a lot of tax breaks. This was the first time in the history of the world that a trader actually solved an
impasse that a grand Mughal could not. This is the time that you start to see the shift that is taking place almost concurrently in India, western Europe and everything in between, where
the trader actually becomes a person who is not just economically powerful, but politically and socially as well. Suddenly people of trading families were being appointed to positions in the
court. They were given charge of fiscal policies of the state in the Mughal Empire. But the shift was not just in India. The world economy was unleashed. For whatever good or bad, it
unleashed the early modern economy, where the state kind of took a step back and deregulated a lot of economic activity, gave tax breaks, legal protections, and so on. It unleashed so much
activity, so much innovation. Q. HAS GREED EVOLVED IN THE RECENT PAST? A. In the late 1990s, Bill Gates was hated for making Microsoft Windows programme the default one on personal
computers. In 2005-06, Gates was somebody who was accepted positively for his charity. We see a lot of elites in the West contribute to science. That idea of generosity is actually a very
old anthropological concept, where you can gain social capital by giving it away. When you are seen as a generous person, you gain social capital. And so it is the opposite of greed. One of
the biggest problems with Indian business elites is that they are some of the least philanthropic people on the face of the planet. We wonder why universities do not do well. We have people
who go to our universities, make lots of money and they never give back. We seem to be producing students who will move to the US. It is like the Indian outlook has not changed since the
16th and 17th centuries.