[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

16 Things That Everyone Needs To Know About Violent Far-Left Revolution In Los Angeles

Undercover video in Arizona alleges ongoing consumer fraud by Fairlife

Dozens arrested after San Francisco protest turns violent Sunday

Looking for the toughest badasses in the city (Los Angeles)

Democrat Civil War Explodes: DNC Chair Threatens to Quit Over David Hogg

Invaders waving Mexican flags, pour onto the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles

Australian Fake News Journo Hit By Rubber Bullet In L.A. Riot

22-year-old dies after being unable to afford asthma inhaler

North Korean Bulsae-4 Long-Range ATGM Spotted Again In Russian Operation Zone

Alexander Dugin: A real Maidan has begun in Los Angeles

State Department Weighing $500 Million Grant to Controversial Gaza Aid Group: Report

LA Mayor Karen Bass ordered LAPD to stand down, blocked aid to federal officers during riots.

Russia Has a Titanium Submarine That Can ‘Deep Dive’ 19,700 Feet

Shocking scene as DC preps for Tr*mp's military birthday parade.

Earth is being Pulled Apart by Crazy Space Weather! Volcanoes go NUTS as Plasma RUNS OUT

Gavin, feel free to use this as a campaign ad in 2028.

US To Formalize Military Presence in Syria in Deal With al-Qaeda-Linked Govt

GOP Rep Introduces Resolution Labeling Free Palestine Slogan as Anti-Semitism

Two-thirds of troops who left the military in 2023 were at risk for mental health conditions

UK and France abandon plans to recognise Palestinian state at conference

Kamala Backs LA Protests After Rioters Attack Federal Officers

Netanyahu's ultra-Orthodox partners move ahead with Knesset dissolution plan

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine: Zelensky will leave the country

Man protesting Paramount ICE raid added to FBI's Most Wanted

JUAN O SAVIN- The Plan to Capture America

US Manufacturing By State: Who Gains Most From 'Made In America'?

Rickards: The Truth About Fort Knox And Gold Leasing

Los Angeles Warzone: "Insurrectionist Mobs" Attack Cops, Set Fires, Block 101 Freeway

The Attack on the USS Liberty (June 8, 1967) - Speech by Survivor Phillip Tourney At the Revisionist History of War Conference (Video)

‘I Smell CIA/Deep State All Over This’ — RFK Jr. VP Nicole Shanahan Blasts Sanctuary Cities,


History
See other History Articles

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: 312
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

Click for Full Text!

Click for Full Text!


Poster Comment:

Nothing new under the sun...... (1 image)

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.

#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.

aristeides  posted on  2007-01-29   17:39:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: aristeides, swarthyguy, lodwick, all (#2)

I don't think the East India Company was a corporation,

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).

richard9151  posted on  2007-01-29   18:06:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 4.

#5. To: richard9151 (#4) (Edited)

The British East India Company was indeed a joint stock company, with shareholders. But joint stock companies differ from corporations, most notably in not having limited liability.

Edit: I didn't read that Wikipedia piece on joint stock companies carefully enough. Apparently I was wrong, and joint stock companies did indeed have limited liability.

aristeides  posted on  2007-01-29 19:07:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: richard9151 (#4)

it is not an accident that it came into being at approximately the same time as the Bank of England.

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.

DeaconBenjamin  posted on  2007-01-29 21:44:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 4.

TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]