Yale professor Douglas W. Rae uses Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger to examine why developing economies struggle to dismantle entrenched inequality. Delivered as part of his course Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform, the lecture moves chapter by chapter through the novel's account of protagonist Balram Halwai, using it to discuss corruption and rent-seeking as obstacles to development, India's caste structure, and the country's religious history. Rae connects these themes back to earlier class discussions on the mechanics and morality of capitalism, treating the novel's fictional village hierarchies, the Stork, the Raven, the Wild Boar and the Buffalo, as a way into real economic structures. The session closes with a short video on India's economic background and the solar energy company SELCO, grounding the literary discussion in contemporary development policy. The lecture is discursive and text-driven, aimed at students who have already read the novel and followed the course's earlier sessions on capitalism's history and critics.