One of the dominant memes of the 21st century is that of the Great Man (or Great Woman) theory of history. In this view, the 1500s was the century of (seemingly innumerable) great men and women, ranging from Sir Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and Catherine de Medici to Philip II and many more. In this interpretation of history, it was the intelligence, the courage, and, most important, the will of these solitary greats that molded nations, drove forward science and philosophy, and crafted industries. The Great Man theory is, obviously, at odds with Marxist, structuralist, and post-Marxist theories, which argue it is economics, climate, and other social and environmental forces that shape the course of human development.
In his recent book, Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism, Duke University’s Philip J. Stern presents a theory of colonial history that combines elements of both the structuralist and the Great Man visions, arguing that much of British colonial adventurism was driven by corporations formed by eccentric and determined individuals: “investors and idealists, creditors and convicts, peers and parvenus, pirates and poets, lawyers and landowners, entrepreneurs and embezzlers.” Stern presents the corporation as laying the groundwork for the modern world. Since the advent of modernity, Stern points out, it has been increasingly difficult to distinguish between corporate and state interests; even today, figures like Mark Zuckerberg view Facebook as functioning like a “government.”
The corporation is not all that new; it has roots in the classical era. Romans had economic ventures such as societas publicanorum, and there were the guilds of the Middle Ages. The corporation as we know it has its most immediate roots in religious and civic bodies such as the juridical structures of universities and religious orders. The corporation also helped shape how political theorists framed the “enduring sovereignty” of both monarchies and city-states.
The modern corporation, however, changed our world with the advent of dividends and shares that could be purchased by potentially anyone. The fact that corporations could draw from potentially limitless pools of money enabled them to, at least potentially, eclipse governments and states in power and influence. Moreover, as other economists have noted, corporations helped to explode the firm social hierarchies of the Middle Ages, enabling butchers to become governors of the East India Company. While the political left and the far right have traditionally excoriated corporations as merely vehicles of greed, Stern notes that the formation of corporations was often driven by patriotic and even religious motivations.
As strange as it may seem to some, corporations eventually obtained “rights” and became, in the words of Edward Coke, both “invisible” and “immortal,” powerful enough even to influence states. Corporations further developed the ability to take out loans, accumulate property, issue bonds, and form subsidiary companies. Some corporations, such as the East India Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, came to rule over millions of people. As corporations grew in power, however, they became the subject of concern among a variety of thinkers.
For Thomas Hobbes, they were “worms”; other figures, as Stern notes, viewed them in “monstrous” terms, as vampires or Frankenstein-like threats to the body politic. Vladimir Lenin further identified imperialism as the last stage of monopoly capitalism. As European colonialism expanded, corporations formed for territorial and economic expansion, resting on the theory that native peoples in the New World, Africa, and Asia had lost their own rights and sovereignty.
British corporate imperialism, according to Stern, begins with Elizabeth I’s offer of money and troops in support of the French Huguenots in October of 1562. Although the expedition was a failure, those English who fought the French Catholics went on to fight and expand English colonial efforts in Ireland as well as in the New World. However, as Stern also notes, as early as the 1480s, the British were dipping their toes in colonial exploration. John Cabot explored Canada in 1497 with the blessing of Henry VII, the last medieval king of England. London investors began mercantile exploration of Africa under the Adventures to Guinie joint stock company in the 1560s. These early British corporations would go on to request relief from taxes as well as the freedom to operate outside the British realm.
The most famous early British corporation was likely the Company of Merchant Adventures of England, which included such figures as mathematician/physician Robert Recorde and the mathematician/occultist John Dee. The company requested a charter in 1555 that would give it a legal identity with the right to own property, and eventually was renamed the Fellowship of English Merchants for Discovery of New Trades in 1566. This would become the first of many companies led by ambitious and adventuresome men and women who would go on to shape the modern world.
As noted above, the Elizabethan period remains the gold standard for exploration of the world and stamping it with the character of Great Britain. In the 20th century, the British Empire would collapse, but the corporations that helped shape that empire have continued doing business into the 21st. For example, the Hudson’s Bay Company still exists, as does such companies as De Beers and Unilever (a merger of the Lever Brothers with Dutch Margarine Unie). The Hongkong Bank has become The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, or HSBC. These formerly British corporations have become “globalized,” but they still retain their tremendous power and influence.
For the Old Left and the 1960s New Left, “corporation” was a dirty word. In fact, it was a word even worse than racism. Corporations were enslaving, polluting, domineering forces that needed to be captured by the state and overthrown by collective efforts of the working class. In the 21st century, however, the left has largely abandoned anti-capitalism for the sake of “antiracism” projects and attacks on heteronormity. While earlier generations of hippies prided themselves on visiting “locally owned” co-ops and groovy coffee shops, the millennial left has no problem shopping at Whole Foods and sipping Starbucks. Ironically, it is the New Right that looks askance at corporations, advocating home gardens and Etsy handicrafts as a way to wage war on Woke Capitalism. At the same time, tech bros such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, whose corporations and business ventures have constructed the postmillennial world (just as earlier British corporations had shaped the modern world), are themselves supporters of the New Right.
At any rate, as our century takes shape, it will still be corporations helping to drive the arc of history.
