My wife and I used to debate which were the most important inventions in history but both of us agreed that the joint stock corporation was in the top 5 along with the wheel, gear, and control of fire.
Sure; I'm arguing that the leap necessary between wheels and gears isn't really all that huge. A gear is basically just a wheel–regardless of whether you think it's a separate invention or not it's not really that impressive as going from nothing to the wheel.
A gear is a lever which uses a wheel to apply continuous leverage - I would say using wheels as force multipliers is a considerable jump in cleverness than just using them to roll around
I read a surprisingly enjoyable book you might like on the history of double entry accounting, developed in the markets of Venice in the 16th century as Arabic numerals began replacing Roman numerals for their easier arithmetic. More thorough month to month bookkeeping of profits and losses was a precursor to anyone investing their own money in someone else’s business. Before that it was just Royal families funding risky excursions.
One of the nice things about marrying someone from a very different background yet with many shared interests is that life together can be really fun. That particular conversation (what are the most important inventions) probably spanned more than a decade. It was not the only such. Sometimes a topic would go into abeyance and then one of us would read something that would reignite the topic for a while.
I don't think either of us would have ranked the JSC #1, but in the top 5 or so, sure. It's not like one can definitively generate a proper ranking, but some things are clearly top 25 but not top 10, for example.
Insurance is essentially gambling, which has existed since ancient times, backed by a too-big-to-fail institution, which is made possible in modernity by the joint stock corporation.
My vote is for moveable type: Suddenly Bibles became cheap and people could question the structure of the church. News papers came and people could debate the structure of the state. Scientific books and journals.
I recommend a podcast from the World Service called "50 Things that Made the modern Economy". They are short (8min) episodes, by Tim Harford (the Undercover Economist).
Some of them are the obvious, but there are also many less so items that have had surprising impacts. Obviously they are short, so not lots of details, but they always cite their sources at the end if you are inspired to read more.
No, I consider a corporation simply to be a machine operated by people.
I do find it disturbing that if you run my over while driving a car you, not the car, is punished while if a corporation knowingly poisons people the people “driving” it are rarely punished at all.
> In the course of this, in what seemed to many of its wisest minds an act of willful self-harm, the English had unilaterally cut themselves off from the most powerful institution in Europe, so turning themselves in the eyes of many Europeans into something of a pariah nation. As a result, isolated from their baffled neighbors, the English were forced to scour the globe for new markets and commercial openings further afield. This they did with a piratical enthusiasm.
Cor, perhaps it was deliberate, but I was so sure this was leading up to a comment on the current political climate.
India was one of the richest countries in the world, if not the richest before the East India company and Islamic, Dutch and British invasions. It used clay pots, not plastics and its population of 200 milloin plus had plenty of fertile land to develop agriculture and cotton - the oil of the time. It was the land that gave the world yoga, Ayurveda and the numerical system. Not to mention Indian food. Britain called it the jewel in the crown for this reason, no other country gave it more wealth than India. You could argue that the British are incredibly innefficient in one regard that they survived it's meagre population of 10 million people off the back of this and made them wealthy whilst making a larger country impoverished. India didn't need the industrial revolution, Britain did. India had natural leaf plates, Britain's and west gave it an industry that it now has to rely on which is driven by coal production and climate change driving industries. What a mess
Probably because it’s a bit misleading as your link shows. GDP per capita was low everywhere, barely above subsistence. Their % dropped when others started growing rapidly.
The data linked doesn’t indicate that was the primary reason, there is a small dip in GDP per capita (-10%?) for India/China but it was basically flat.
Looks like before industrialization the richest countries were only moderately better off. Once it began to take off that gap became enormous.
I’ve certainly noticed an abundance of vitriol against anyone who mentions the misdeeds of the British Empire, of which there are many. There are also a bunch of Empire apologists that will pop up every now and then.
While the parent comment is heated and not factually incorrect, the reason for the down-votes has to do with the willful ignorance of the west towards some of the worst atrocities committed by places from where it derives its value systems from.
The Nazis were the bad guys and they are gone. The Soviets and USSR were the baddies after, and they are gone.
The west and esp. US+UK pride themselves in never having been that evil. In the mean time, the EIC committed atrocities on a scale rivaling those exact boogeymen of the West.
Accepting the crimes of the EIC, would have them facing some of the worst Hypocrisy of their society, and that isn't the most fun thing.
> It used clay pots, not plastics and its population of 200 milloin plus had plenty of fertile land to develop agriculture and cotton - the oil of the time.
It's not like Europe was using it either: the development of what we'd call plastic happened largely during the late 19th century leading into the 20th century.
The point being made is that systems existed for the manufacture of consumer goods required by millions of people without the need for modern fossil fuel based technologies that are wrecking the planet. On a first glance, it seems like a valid point to me.
He's right about India being the richest, it's estimated that all together the British stole $45 trillion in wealth from India. I imagine the amount stolen from China is of similar magnitude.
mentioning yoga ayurveda and "Islamic invasion" clearly gives you away as a Hindu nationalist.
including Islamic "invasion" makes no sense here. The first muslim armies entered the subcontinent in like 800, no comparison to Europeans. And India only gained status after its Muslim rule.
As pointed out, India's history and glory predates Muslims and Islam by thousands of years.
The difference between "Islamic Invasion" and the "British Invasion" was that the former (for all its negatives) ultimately became part of Indian society and contributed to it while the British systematically siphoned off all resources from India to their land to the detriment of the local populace. Millions died, Millions more were reduced to poverty with no way to build themselves up and the direct result can still be seen in today's India.
PS: Read the books and articles that i have linked to in this thread for some more info.
Yoga and Ayurveda are still relevant in many parts of the world and are not just specific to Hindu Nationalists. While the term "Islamic invasion" is not exactly correct, there is a dedicated Wiki page for Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent:
> And India only gained status after its Muslim rule
I call big bullshit on this one. India had status on its own right. It was called Bharat, and before that Aryavarta and before that Jambudweepa. One of the many names of Ancient India. Islam did not even exist during this time. Islamic invasion happened purely because of India's status. The objective was three fold: Destroy idols, monuments and temples, rape the women and plunder the wealth. Many were converted by force and many sacrificed their lives fighting. Read the haunting stories of Hindu Kush and why it is called that and you will get your answers. Visit the temples that lie in ruin in various parts of India, the most famous site being Hampi of erstwhile Vijayanagara Empire that was completely destroyed due to invasions. Do not even dare try to whitewash this genocide of Hindus and Hindu culture by giving it a "status". There is no status that can be given to massacres carried out to destroy a civilization. What happened to Hindus during the Islamic rule was worse than what happened to Jews during the Nazi regime.
All Abrahamic religions are modern compared to Sanathan Dharma which is one of the last surviving Ancient civilization. Most of the other civilizations either perished on their own or were destroyed systematically by Abrahamic religions. These are recorded facts. Not recorded by Hindus but by those who committed the atrocities. From Genghis Khan, to Aurangzeb all the way to the British (Bengal Famine) and Portuguese (Goa Inquisition). Everyone committed grave atrocities on Hindus for which there hasn't even been recognition let alone an apology. Yet Hindus did not retaliate in kind. So I call bullshit on everything you just uttered.
This is not "Hindu Nationalism". This is facts. And facts hurt.
The same China where manufacturers had been implicated in supplying Fentanyl to the illicit US opiate market causing widespread overdoses and death? Nobody is innocent when power corrupts.
Getting your opposition stoned on cheap drugs is not unique to the opium wars, and China shipping fentanyl to US is certainly a case of history rhyming:
> not everyone struck it rich trading in opium. It was a competitive, highly volatile market. But those who worked for Perkins and a few other firms became the city's elite — otherwise known as Boston Brahmins. The Cabots, Cushings, Welds, Delanos (the grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Forbes all built fortunes on opium.
> "Opium was really a way that America was able to transfer China’s economic power to America’s industrial revolution."
Timely, I'll add it to my reading list. I've just (yesterday) finished "The Corporation that Changed the World"[1], that combines history of EIC and current (well, 2006) corporations and globalisation. It jumps about a fair bit (intentionally), as he draws lessons from the now mostly repealed regulations to stop EIC happening again, but well worth a read overall. Not afraid to dig into history of an utterly out of control corporation. A darker rendering than others I have seen with some surprises. Might have been even more interesting had he published a year after the 08 banking crisis.
We've failed to remember Adam Smith's take on the corporation into modernity, just the Wealth of Nations. One for me to dig into further, as his actual views on companies don't seem to match up with what we think he thought. :)
There were calls to wind EIC in, or wind it up going all the way back to the 1610s, and to give India back almost from the moment they arrived. Which continued constantly until it was finally forcibly wound up. All those dodgy stock splits, Theranos and Enron type frauds, countries wondering how to tame the out of control tech titan? EIC got there first. Just as willing to defraud Britain as anywhere else. As the first English joint stock company. As a near independent sovereign corporate with powers of justice, war and currency.
Imagine a company like Google had an army that invaded countries that would not deregulate privacy. That would be a modern equivalent to the HEIC. It would suck.
The Murdochs’ News Corp is arguably in that position already, albeit with the one extra step of needing to lobby politicians whose constituents are already in its thrall.
Was literally thinking about buying a book about EIC. Not interested in the political perspective would rather have a historians. Would it still be a good book or are there other suggestions?
Overall recommended. I enjoyed it, and it left a few trails to follow - like the surprise views of Adam Smith as I mentioned in OP. If you don't know the general history of empire and the age, or want more of a "The EIC and how India was colonised" and the impact on lives, the focus might be frustrating. Dry in places. Could be longer - it's about 1 page per year of EIC!
Mini review:
Author is a prof at LSE who's written other histories. It's light on some of the surrounding events, as it's focused on the company and the money. He threads forward periodically, to how some of those company things relate to a modern multinational, or a corporate survivor of that age or some regulation. Mostly that works, occasionally it's a bit jarring. Overall it's a feature to see what we think as modern capitalism getting out of control now, were just as out of control way back when.
Focusing on the company, you don't get a great deal of depth of some of the events, e.g. The Boston Tea Party, and the preceding tea boycott, just the company role in causing it and how they made it worse. You get to find out the EIC's part had English merchants writing to their colonial cousins urging them to restart the boycott - that had been petering out. You get to find out Adam Smith felt the invisible hand should be paired with an invisible fist of regulation, and really quite disliked the company. You won't get the depth of the events and consequences that those choices, share splits, or chasing dividends caused, or the impact on the Indians and company workers they were betraying.
It's opinionated. I think it's all the better for that. The couple of others I have read on EIC or Clive have perhaps been easier reads, but could fall into the trap of "they did terrible things, but it was another age, so...". Then give you the more of the events without the detail of the evil villain plotting the next way to line their pockets. Yet give you more a sense of the impact on regions.
There is a good deal on Clive, Plassey and Bengal. By the time you're done you get a visceral sense of why, in his later days, Robert Clive was one of the most hated figures in England (and no doubt India).
I'll stick this here for anyone wanting to know the real history of EIC and not some fancy, all-so-rosy version presented by EIC apologists. As a constant reminder of the atrocities, plunder, destruction of culture and tradition carried by EIC in the garb of "Industrialization" and establishing "Democracy" for which Britain has never apologized:
Hmm... You seem to be triggered by my dismissal of Dalrymple. And yes, i have read the article (and a even better excerpt in The Guardian earlier).
The problem i have is that, he is too far removed from that time and too much inclined to keep things "nice" rather than calling a spade a spade. You cannot look at the actions of the EIC from a purely mercantile viewpoint. You have to acknowledge the inherent racism and rampant thievery with a complete absence of ethics/morals which were disguised under the garb of "Trade" and "Civilization". There is a reason for the existence of the phrase "Perfidious Albion" to describe British treachery over the ages.
William McCullagh Torrens was an enlightened Irish Politician of the 19th century when India was still suffering under Colonialism. He wrote in detail about how the Indian Kings/Nawabs were lied to, duped and fleeced of their wealth and power via promises made but never kept. There was absolutely no regard for the common man's life. He writes (page 7);
"Our duty is not to judge others, but ourselves; to beware of covetousness and of being betrayed into passive complicity by unpardonable laziness to seek, or still more despicable cowardice to own, the truth ... We are accountable, as a free-speaking and freely represented people, for all that may hereafter be done in our name; and if upon investigation, which with honour and in conscience we are not at liberty to elude, we are convinced ... that a great debt of reparation is due to India by this country, we are bound to use every just and fair occasion to press for restitution..."
In this age of expediency, no British Historian/Journalist would ever utter such a thing. I highly recommend going through the Torrens book.
65 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threaddevice (n): a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose
The purpose is different.
Metal gears are also considerably difficult to make reliability. I'd be interested in a history of the gear.
The book is “Double Entry” by Jane Gleeson-White
I don't think either of us would have ranked the JSC #1, but in the top 5 or so, sure. It's not like one can definitively generate a proper ranking, but some things are clearly top 25 but not top 10, for example.
Some of them are the obvious, but there are also many less so items that have had surprising impacts. Obviously they are short, so not lots of details, but they always cite their sources at the end if you are inspired to read more.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...
I do find it disturbing that if you run my over while driving a car you, not the car, is punished while if a corporation knowingly poisons people the people “driving” it are rarely punished at all.
Cor, perhaps it was deliberate, but I was so sure this was leading up to a comment on the current political climate.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-was-Indias-GDP-before-the-Bri...
People underestimate how key the US was to the opium trade in China. The US was a bigger trader than the UK/Germany/France combined at one point.
Looks like before industrialization the richest countries were only moderately better off. Once it began to take off that gap became enormous.
https://www.englishspeecheschannel.com/english-speeches/shas...
PS : direct link to the talk in the (spam filled) website
https://youtu.be/_S955fkSZd8
The Nazis were the bad guys and they are gone. The Soviets and USSR were the baddies after, and they are gone.
The west and esp. US+UK pride themselves in never having been that evil. In the mean time, the EIC committed atrocities on a scale rivaling those exact boogeymen of the West.
Accepting the crimes of the EIC, would have them facing some of the worst Hypocrisy of their society, and that isn't the most fun thing.
It's not like Europe was using it either: the development of what we'd call plastic happened largely during the late 19th century leading into the 20th century.
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/agrarian-and-other-histories/9...
https://www.livemint.com/Companies/HNZA71LNVNNVXQ1eaIKu6M/Br...
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-t...
including Islamic "invasion" makes no sense here. The first muslim armies entered the subcontinent in like 800, no comparison to Europeans. And India only gained status after its Muslim rule.
As pointed out, India's history and glory predates Muslims and Islam by thousands of years.
The difference between "Islamic Invasion" and the "British Invasion" was that the former (for all its negatives) ultimately became part of Indian society and contributed to it while the British systematically siphoned off all resources from India to their land to the detriment of the local populace. Millions died, Millions more were reduced to poverty with no way to build themselves up and the direct result can still be seen in today's India.
PS: Read the books and articles that i have linked to in this thread for some more info.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_in_the_Indian...
Since we are talking semantics seriously, even the British didn't "invade" India, they colonized it.
I call big bullshit on this one. India had status on its own right. It was called Bharat, and before that Aryavarta and before that Jambudweepa. One of the many names of Ancient India. Islam did not even exist during this time. Islamic invasion happened purely because of India's status. The objective was three fold: Destroy idols, monuments and temples, rape the women and plunder the wealth. Many were converted by force and many sacrificed their lives fighting. Read the haunting stories of Hindu Kush and why it is called that and you will get your answers. Visit the temples that lie in ruin in various parts of India, the most famous site being Hampi of erstwhile Vijayanagara Empire that was completely destroyed due to invasions. Do not even dare try to whitewash this genocide of Hindus and Hindu culture by giving it a "status". There is no status that can be given to massacres carried out to destroy a civilization. What happened to Hindus during the Islamic rule was worse than what happened to Jews during the Nazi regime.
All Abrahamic religions are modern compared to Sanathan Dharma which is one of the last surviving Ancient civilization. Most of the other civilizations either perished on their own or were destroyed systematically by Abrahamic religions. These are recorded facts. Not recorded by Hindus but by those who committed the atrocities. From Genghis Khan, to Aurangzeb all the way to the British (Bengal Famine) and Portuguese (Goa Inquisition). Everyone committed grave atrocities on Hindus for which there hasn't even been recognition let alone an apology. Yet Hindus did not retaliate in kind. So I call bullshit on everything you just uttered.
This is not "Hindu Nationalism". This is facts. And facts hurt.
lol
> not everyone struck it rich trading in opium. It was a competitive, highly volatile market. But those who worked for Perkins and a few other firms became the city's elite — otherwise known as Boston Brahmins. The Cabots, Cushings, Welds, Delanos (the grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Forbes all built fortunes on opium.
> "Opium was really a way that America was able to transfer China’s economic power to America’s industrial revolution."
From an eye opening article on the history of Boston: https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-hi...
We've failed to remember Adam Smith's take on the corporation into modernity, just the Wealth of Nations. One for me to dig into further, as his actual views on companies don't seem to match up with what we think he thought. :)
There were calls to wind EIC in, or wind it up going all the way back to the 1610s, and to give India back almost from the moment they arrived. Which continued constantly until it was finally forcibly wound up. All those dodgy stock splits, Theranos and Enron type frauds, countries wondering how to tame the out of control tech titan? EIC got there first. Just as willing to defraud Britain as anywhere else. As the first English joint stock company. As a near independent sovereign corporate with powers of justice, war and currency.
Ain't nothing new then.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/844131.The_Corporation_T...
https://www.google.com/search?q=murdoch+iraq
Mini review:
Author is a prof at LSE who's written other histories. It's light on some of the surrounding events, as it's focused on the company and the money. He threads forward periodically, to how some of those company things relate to a modern multinational, or a corporate survivor of that age or some regulation. Mostly that works, occasionally it's a bit jarring. Overall it's a feature to see what we think as modern capitalism getting out of control now, were just as out of control way back when.
Focusing on the company, you don't get a great deal of depth of some of the events, e.g. The Boston Tea Party, and the preceding tea boycott, just the company role in causing it and how they made it worse. You get to find out the EIC's part had English merchants writing to their colonial cousins urging them to restart the boycott - that had been petering out. You get to find out Adam Smith felt the invisible hand should be paired with an invisible fist of regulation, and really quite disliked the company. You won't get the depth of the events and consequences that those choices, share splits, or chasing dividends caused, or the impact on the Indians and company workers they were betraying.
It's opinionated. I think it's all the better for that. The couple of others I have read on EIC or Clive have perhaps been easier reads, but could fall into the trap of "they did terrible things, but it was another age, so...". Then give you the more of the events without the detail of the evil villain plotting the next way to line their pockets. Yet give you more a sense of the impact on regions.
There is a good deal on Clive, Plassey and Bengal. By the time you're done you get a visceral sense of why, in his later days, Robert Clive was one of the most hated figures in England (and no doubt India).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4
"Empire in Asia: How We Came by It. A Book of Confessions" by W.M.Torrens for a hard-hitting look at what the British actually did in India
https://archive.org/details/empireinasiahow00torrgoog/page/n...
https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Commerce-Civilization-Capitali...
"Empire in Asia: How We Came by It. A Book of Confessions" by W.M.Torrens
https://archive.org/details/empireinasiahow00torrgoog/page/n...
The problem i have is that, he is too far removed from that time and too much inclined to keep things "nice" rather than calling a spade a spade. You cannot look at the actions of the EIC from a purely mercantile viewpoint. You have to acknowledge the inherent racism and rampant thievery with a complete absence of ethics/morals which were disguised under the garb of "Trade" and "Civilization". There is a reason for the existence of the phrase "Perfidious Albion" to describe British treachery over the ages.
William McCullagh Torrens was an enlightened Irish Politician of the 19th century when India was still suffering under Colonialism. He wrote in detail about how the Indian Kings/Nawabs were lied to, duped and fleeced of their wealth and power via promises made but never kept. There was absolutely no regard for the common man's life. He writes (page 7);
"Our duty is not to judge others, but ourselves; to beware of covetousness and of being betrayed into passive complicity by unpardonable laziness to seek, or still more despicable cowardice to own, the truth ... We are accountable, as a free-speaking and freely represented people, for all that may hereafter be done in our name; and if upon investigation, which with honour and in conscience we are not at liberty to elude, we are convinced ... that a great debt of reparation is due to India by this country, we are bound to use every just and fair occasion to press for restitution..."
In this age of expediency, no British Historian/Journalist would ever utter such a thing. I highly recommend going through the Torrens book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB5ykS-_-CI