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Title: BOOK REVIEW A law unto itself The Corporation that Changed the World
Source:
Asia Times
URL Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IA27Dj01.html
Published: Jan 29, 2007
Author: Sreeram Chaulia /
Post Date: 2007-01-29 17:19:34 by swarthyguy
Keywords: None
Views: 425
Comments: 19
Jan 27, 2007 Page 1 of 2 BOOK REVIEW A law unto itself The Corporation That Changed the World by Nick Robins Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia The British East India Company was a colossus responsible for the creation of the iniquitous modern world. Historian Nick Robins' trenchant new history of this giant re-examines the world's most powerful corporation during the Age of the Enlightenment in terms of its shadow over the global economy of today. It is an attempt to expose its destructive legacy so that future interactions between Western corporations and Asian countries are based on principles of fairness. From the 17th to the 19th century, the East India Company shocked its age with executive malpractice, stock-market excesses and human oppression, outdoing the felons of our times such as Enron. Its contemporaries across the political spectrum saw the "Company" as an overbearing and fundamentally problematic institution. Karl Marx called it the standard bearer of Britain's "moneyocracy". Adam Smith, the economist deeply suspicious of mighty corporations, was horrified at the way in which the Company "oppresses and domineers" in India. Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, declared India to be "radically and irretrievably ruined through the Company's continual drain of wealth". Established in 1600 by royal charter, the Company's operations stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Colonial rule in India was the eventual outcome of the Company's forays, but its ultimate purpose was profit-making with an eye to shareholders and the annual dividend in London. Personal and private profits were the abiding motives of this Company, which "reversed the centuries-old flow of wealth from West to East and engineered a great switch in global development" (p 7). Robins challenges romantic reinterpretations of the Company's past, now under way in Britain, for ignoring the abuse, misery, devastation and plunder that marked its presence in India. His point is that the Company should be assessed on the basis of its extortion, corruption and impunity rather than peripheral contributions to "discovering" Oriental culture Poster Comment: Nothing new under the sun......
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 17.
#2. To: swarthyguy (#0)
I don't think the East India Company was a corporation, was it? If memory serves, Blackstone's chapter on corporations focuses on things like municipalities and universities, not businesses. Back in the eighteenth century, I don't think businesses enjoyed limited liability.
It was a corporation, with stockholders. And, it is not an accident that it came into being at approximately the same time as the Bank of England. As to corporations in that day and age, do a little study on the Rochechilds, and one of the foundations of the their (British) wealth is the slight of hand that (do not remember his name at the moment) pulled off right after the Battle of Waterloo, when he spread a false rumor that Napoleon had won (he kjnew better, because he had agents waiting for news in France), and the British stock market crashed (that is correct, there was a very well developed stock market, and this was in the very early 1700s). He bought up tens of thousands of Pounds Sterling stock for pennies, and the rest, as they say, is history. And yes, of course, the corporations dealt in many more things besides these, but these were the BIG money makers, just as drugs are today as well. And sugar, in that day and age, was well recognized as an addictive drug. The sister to this corporation was the British West Indies Corporation, which dealt in slaves for the West Indies (Caribbian) and sugar, while the British East Indies Co. dealt in Opium, tea and silver stolen from the Chinese (this was the direct cause of the Boxer rebellion in China, where United States troops were used for the first time to protect the drug trade).
It preceded the Bank of England by nearly 100 years. He bought up tens of thousands of Pounds Sterling stock for pennies, and the rest, as they say, is history. Actually, as I heard the story, he purchased government bonds -- "gilts" they were called.
You are correct. That is what I get for not checking, and using my memory. Actually, I think 94 years, with the East Indies company being incorporated in 1600, and the Bank of England on July 27, 1694. And the trading was actually in counsels, or, paper money. BUT, the trading WAS done in the London stock market. (I had to get something right!)
#18. To: richard9151 (#17)
Consols (short for consolidated annuities[citation needed]) are a form of British government bond (gilt), dating originally from the 18th century. In 1752, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister Sir Henry Pelham converted all outstanding issues of redeemable government stock into one bond, Consolidated 3.5% Annuities, in order to reduce the coupon rate paid on the government debt. In 1757, the coupon rate on the stock was reduced to 3%, leaving the stock as Consolidated 3% Annuities. The coupon rate remained at 3% until 1888. In 1888, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Joachim Goschen, converted the existing Consolidated 3% Annuities, along with Reduced 3% Annuities (issued in 1752) and New 3% Annuities (1855), into a new bond, 2¾% Consolidated Stock under the National Debt (Conversion) Act 1888 (Goschen’s Conversion). As part of the terms of the Act, the coupon rate of the stock was reduced to 2½% in 1903, and the stock given a first redemption date of 5th April 1923, after which point the stock could be redeemed at par value by Act of Parliament. Consols still exist today: in their current form as 2½% Consolidated Stock (1923 or after), they remain a small part of the UK Government’s debt portfolio. As the bond has a low coupon, there is little incentive for the government to redeem it. Unlike most gilts, which pay coupons semi-annually, because of its age Consols pay coupons four times a year. Also, as a result of its uncertain redemption date, they are typically treated as a perpetual bond. Given their long life, references to Consols can be found in many places, including literature, such as David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Howards End by E. M. Forster, and Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.
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#4. To: aristeides, swarthyguy, lodwick, all (#2)
I don't think the East India Company was a corporation,
#7. To: richard9151 (#4)
it is not an accident that it came into being at approximately the same time as the Bank of England.
#17. To: DeaconBenjamin (#7)
It preceded the Bank of England by nearly 100 years.
Replies to Comment # 17. And the trading was actually in counsels, or, paper money.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 17.