At the core of Jason Jackson's Traders, Speculators, and Captains of Industry is a longstanding conversation among Indian modernizers about how to identify and nurture the ‘right’ kind of capitalists. Yet this is not just an Indian story. Struggles over “good” and “bad” businessmen have structured political life in all capitalist societies, and the book’s deeper implication is that morality tales about virtuous entrepreneurs and predatory speculators are less descriptions of economic reality than prescriptive efforts to shape it.