Like most visitors to northern India, I visited the Taj Mahal. Unlike most visitors, I asked economic questions. Reports of his tax policies suggest that Shah Jahan may have appropriated as much as 40 per cent of what we now call gross domestic product to support a lifestyle of exceptional ostentation and self-indulgence. He was overthrown by his son, who was exasperated by his father’s penchant for monumental building, anxious to maximise his own share of the loot and concerned by the scale of the levies on the population. But it was all too late. The Mogul empire was in irretrievable decline.
像大多数前往印度北方的游客一样,我游览了泰姬陵。但与他们不同的是,此行引发了我对经济问题的思考。有关沙贾汗(Shah Jahan)税收政策的报告似乎显示,他可能挪用了40%我们现在所称的“国内生产总值,以支持自己穷奢极侈的生活方式。他最后被儿子推翻,因为小沙贾汗不满父亲对兴建标志性建筑物的嗜好,而且急于尽可能多地捞到自己的那份财富,又对民众承受的沉重税负心怀担忧。但一切为时已晚,莫卧儿王朝的颓势无可挽回。
The activities of Shah Jahan epitomise rent-seeking – the accumulation of a fortune not by creating wealth through serving customers better but by the appropriation of such wealth after it has already been created by other people. Both are routes to personal enrichment and the tension between them has been a dominant theme of economic history. Whenever the balance shifts too far in favour of appropriation over creation, we see entrepreneurial talent diverted to unproductive activity, an accelerating cycle in which political power and economic power reinforce each other – until others become envious of the proceeds of appropriation, and the resentment of the oppressed undermines the legitimacy of the regime. Political and economic instability are an inevitable consequence.
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