EconAir

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   The English East India Company (EIC) was an innovative new type of corporation. It was a model for the modern limited-liability, stockholder-funded modern corporation. The EIC also the prototype for the modern multinational corporation created to develop global trade. THE EIC: STRUCTURE AND STRATEGY The East India Company (EIC) was chartered in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I to promote and monopolize English trade with Asia. England, a poor country in the 1600s but with colonial ambitions after defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588, outsourced its colonial ambitions to the East India Company and other private companies.    The East India Company was originally privately funded by 218 merchants and other investors. It was the ...

  INTRODUCTION   The English East India Company (EIC) was an innovative new type of corporation. It was a multinational trading corporation that became an important part of the global economy, created to exploit the profit potential of global trade.  It might be a model for how a multinational corporation (MNC) could survive and prosper in an increasingly chaotic and hostile geopolitical world. For a description of the structure and strategy of the English East India Company, see The English East India Company (EIC):  Trade with India and Asia     THE EIC AS A MODEL FOR FUTURE MNCs?   The international political structure is now moving in reverse as the post-World War II economic and political order created mostly by the United States is breaking down. America seems to be less willing to pay for global  political  leadership, reverting back to its traditional policies of isolationism and protectionism. It hugely expensive military is paid for...