"Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like."
This statement opens the book, and it is also its central thesis. Anarchy narrates the roughly hundred years between 1757 and 1857, during which several European colonial powers came to trade with — and profit from — India. While the Portuguese and the French play supporting roles, the English, in the form of the English East India Company, are the protagonists of this story. They are the "corporation" the opening quote refers to.
The strongest impression the book left on me was how closely the East India Company's operations mirror those of modern capitalist organisations. It feels as though the blueprint for modern capitalism was drafted in companies like the British East India Company and the Dutch VOC. They were among the first joint stock companies — and that, in hindsight, is where the seed of modern capitalism was sown.
When I visited Amsterdam, the walking tour took us to the building that once served as the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. I remember standing there and feeling as though I was visiting one of the truly important sites of the modern world, given how pervasive and powerful that idea — the joint stock corporation — has since become.
Ambitious Men, Enormous Profits
Part of the book reads as a biography of the East India Company itself. The men who built these early capitalist organisations were ambitious to the point of recklessness - willing to sail to distant lands and face potentially fatal dangers for the chance of making enormous personal wealth. And they succeeded. The EIC grew so large that the British economy's fate became tied to the company's quarterly results. Figures like Robert Clive amassed staggering personal fortunes, becoming among the richest men in England.
The company also raised one of the largest armies in the world at the time. This was a private army, staffed largely by Indian soldiers (sepoys) but trained and led by their British officers. Its primary purpose was to protect the company's assets and interests - and to wage war to acquire more. This army, trained in arguably superior European military tactics and equipped with better arms and ammunition, won far more wars than it lost. That military edge was undoubtedly one of the key reasons for the EIC's dominance in India.
Come to think of it, the EIC was more honest than the modern corporations that hide behind a do-good-for-the-world facade. When you command one of the largest armies on earth, there is very little room for pretending to be a benevolent force. Modern corporations dont have standing armies on their payroll anymore. They let the government do that. They instead pull strings behind the curtains, lobby governments, bankroll election campaigns - to effectively do what EIC would do with their army - acquire more resources & crush competition ('build competitive moat' in business language). But because this is behind a curtain, that is there is no army or military campaigns undertaken in the company's name you can point a finger of blame at them,
Capital as the Decisive Weapon
Another reason for EIC's success in campaigns across the Indian subcontinent was the effective deployment of capital - and, crucially, having more of it to deploy. One major reason was the backing of the Jagat Seths, a wealthy banking family in Bengal who had risen to prominence during the later years of Mughal rule. This again has parallels with modern capitalism, where the Jagat Seths, acting as medieval era VC funds, backed military campaigns they judged likely to succeed, in exchange for enormous returns if they proved right. Cold blooded 'return on investment' was the calculation behind backing a foreign power which ended up causing enormous devastation in Bengal, the home land of the Jagath Seths.
All of this manifested in the British EIC and the Dutch VOC becoming disproportionately powerful enterprises for their era. There is a widely circulated graph (which I have not personally fact-checked) that illustrates just how large the Dutch East India Company was compared to the biggest corporations of today. Even accounting for imprecision, the scale is striking.
The Bengal Famine: Capitalism's Darkest Chapter
A particularly brutal chapter of the book covers the Bengal famine. It reads as a classic case of an organisation so fixated on extracting maximum value from its resources that it was effectively blind to one of the worst famines in human history unfolding around it.
Before reading this book, I had not fully appreciated how prosperous Bengal once was. Murshidabad was a thriving city with a population rivalling that of London, then one of the great cities of the world. The Hooghly River was the lifeline that enabled trade and commerce from what was an extraordinarily rich and fertile region, with sophisticated textile manufacturing. To read how this prosperity was reduced to the site of one of history's worst famines ought to give even the most committed free-market advocate a degree of sympathy for left-leaning politics.
A Game of Thrones in 18th-Century India
The other half of the book concerns what was happening in India when the Europeans arrived. The broad outline - multiple factions fighting one another, easily exploited by the British through divide-and-rule tactics - is a familiar story. But Dalrymple adds vivid colour and depth to the individual characters: Muhammad Shah Rangila, Shah Alam, Alivardi Khan, Siraj ud-Daula, Haider Ali, Tipu Sultan, Nana Phadnavis, Mahadji Scindia, and others. The narrative reads like a political thriller, with multiple parties locked in shifting alliances and betrayals. Dalrymple really shines in bringing key episodes to life like the Battle of Plassey, Siraj ud-Daula's attack on Calcutta, and this is what makes a 400-page book feel like a quick read.
A Cosmopolitan World, Now Lost
Reading this book made me realise what a fascinating period 18th-century India was. It was a time of rapid, often violent change, where entire regions like Bengal were thrown into shock by European capitalist ambitions. New cities — Bombay, Madras, Calcutta — began taking the shape that would make them modern India's great urban centres. The Indian marketplace was so prosperous that European mercenaries came to offer their services to the highest bidder, while merchants and traders from Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia flocked to its cities. It would have been extraordinary to move through such a cosmopolitan world.
Onward
Another book I am currently reading, India in the Persianate Age, ends neatly where Anarchy begins — in the 18th century. Having nearly finished it, I feel I now have much richer context around the world Dalrymple describes. I look forward to writing about that one next.
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