cj#307> (update) The Corporate Machines

1995-11-14

Richard Moore

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Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995
To: •••@••.••• (Richard K. Moore)
From: Jay Hanson <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#304> Hanson: The Corporate Machines

>        Did British limited-liability companies in American revolutionary
>days have the ominous characteristics of modern corporations?  Was that
>recognized as part of the colonial problem?  I know Pennsylvania was wholly
>owned by the Penn family/company -- this is something Ben Franklin fought
>against when in London.

This is not my speciality.  But according to TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS,

"[Americans] knew that English kings chartered the East India Company,
 the Hudson's Bay Company and many American colonies in order to control
 property and commerce. ... The royal charter creating Maryland, for
 example, required that the colony's exports be shipped through England."

"Having thrown off English rule, the revolutionaries did not give
 governors, judges, or generals the authority to charter corporations.
 Citizens made certain that legislators issued charters, one at a time
 and for a limited number of years.  They kept a tight hold on corporations
 by spelling out rules each business had to follow, by holding business
 owners liable for harms or injuries, and by revoking charters."
 [p. 6]

Jay

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Editor:

        I've combined these two paragraphs with Jay's previous piece and
put them into cyberlib.  Overall, a very good capsule summary of the
relationship between the U.S. and corporations -- the revolution betrayed
again.

-rkm

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 Posted by Richard K. Moore (•••@••.•••) Wexford, Ireland
                 http://www.internet-eireann.ie/cyberlib
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