5 ms·
I was just reading about business in the 1700s. Incorporation was granted very rarely, and only when the corporation was deemed to operate in the public interes
by pyuser583 3y ago
I was just reading about business in the 1700s. Incorporation was granted very rarely, and only when the corporation was deemed to operate in the public interest.
The result was that new corporation were objects of civic pride.
It also meant lots of business was done by unincorporated networks of merchants.
It was pretty amazing how massive networks of individual merchants could operate without corporations. Kind of blew my mind.
- Gormo 3y agoCorporations are just networks individuals, coordinating their activities through formal processes.
- pyuser583 3y agoCorporations are legal entities capable of owning property independent of their members.
- Gormo 3y agoYes, that's a legal doctrine that offers a great deal of utility. But how does it in any way alter the underlying reality of anything?
- JohnFen 3y agoNo. Corporations are government-granted engines of economic production that use people as one of their economic inputs. Corporations are not simply analogous to network of people.
- Gormo 3y agoThere is no such thing as an "engine of economic production" that has any concrete existence per se. You are reifying abstractions. These analytical models might be useful, but they are just that -- conceptual models -- all layered on top of the same underlying reality. Everything in society reduces to people and their relations with each other. Corporations have no factual, objective existence as anything other that networks of individuals coordinating their activities according to certain methods.