Publicado el 28-04-10
Corporate capitalism was invented in nineteenth-century Britain; most of the
market institutions that we take for granted today - limited companies, shares,
stock markets, accountants, financial newspapers - were Victorian creations.
So were the moral codes, the behavioural assumptions, the rules of thumb and
the unspoken agreements that made this market structure work. This
innovative study provides the first integrated analysis of the origin of these
formative capitalist institutions, and reveals why they were conceived and how
they were constructed. It explores the moral, economic and legal assumptions
that supported this formal institutional structure, and which continue to shape
the corporate economy of today. Tracing the institutional growth of the
corporate economy in Victorian Britain and demonstrating that many of the
perceived problems of modern capitalism - financial fraud, reckless
speculation, excessive remuneration - have clear historical precedents, this is
a major contribution to the economic history of modern Britain.
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