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.
像大多數前往印度北方的游客一樣，我游覽了泰姬陵。但與他們不同的是，此行引發了我對經濟問題的思考。有關沙賈汗(Shah Jahan)稅收政策的報告似乎顯示，他可能挪用了40%我們現在所稱的“國內生產總值”，以支持自己窮奢極侈的生活方式。他最后被兒子推翻，因為小沙賈汗不滿父親對興建標志性建筑物的嗜好，而且急于盡可能多地撈到自己的那份財富，又對民眾承受的沉重稅負心懷擔憂。但一切為時已晚，莫臥兒王朝的頹勢無可挽回。