EconAir

OVERVIEW: In the future, what will be the relationship between central governments of nation-states and large private companies including multinational corporations (MNCs)? Private companies mean privately-owned, including public companies with widespread ownership and secondary markets for the company stock. Like with the English East India Company (EIC) in the past, there are new questions about the relationships between the multinational company and the home country, and between the multinational company and foreign countries. T o what extent do economic organizations and political institutions overlap or are mutually dependent? To what extent are corporations, especially multinational corporations (MNCs), assuming political functions because of the failures of nation-states? INTRODUCTION The following comments are speculative. This is a possible scenario, not a forecast. It depends on assumptions about the future political organization of the world and the future possible power of ...

The Mughal emperor Shah Alam hands a scroll to Robert Clive, the governor of Bengal, which transferred tax collecting rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company.  Illustration: Benjamin West (1738–1820)/British Library INTRODUCTION   Founded in 1600, the English East India Company (EIC), like its Dutch equivalent the United Netherlands East India Company (VOC, from the Dutch initials) was an innovative new type of corporation. It was a model for the limited-liability, stockholder-owned and funded modern corporation. The EIC and the VOC were early prototypes for the modern multinational corporation. Originally created as a company to develop profitable long-distance trade, the EIC evolved into a political organization that controlled or dominated about two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent by the early 1800s. The EIC and the Navigation Acts were the starting points for England's naval dominance and colonial empire. The large increase in England's income and we...