The Cannibal Capitalist

This book challenges the myth of entrepreneurship as a means to subvert power and create a more equal distribution of wealth and power. Entrepreneurship leads to the rise of individuals from subordinate classes into positions of power and wealth; however, this rise is possible through victimization of those very subordinate classes. Entrepreneurship is a mechanism to preserve a hegemonic system that exploits subordinate classes. This is achieved through examining the discourse of entrepreneurship in The White Tiger (2008), a novel by Aravind Adiga that tells the story of an Indian entrepreneur in Bangalore whose rise to power comes at the expense of many others, some of whom lose their lives as a direct result of his entrepreneurial acts. This book places Balram Halawi, The White Tiger’s protagonist, within a tradition of literary entrepreneurs that precedes him, and discusses the nature of entrepreneurship that further exploits dominated classes through the example his story provides. Balram’s position within a literary tradition of primarily Western entrepreneurs allows for an analysis of entrepreneurship at work in different societies.