Conceptualizing the Business Corporation: Insights from History

© 2020 Cambridge University Press. This paper has been accepted for publication and will appear in a revised form, subsequent to peer-review and/or editorial input by Cambridge University Press. This manuscript is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial No-Derivatives License (CC-BY-NC-ND). For further information please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The purpose of this symposium is to shed light on the genealogy of the idea of a business corporation, an economic institution which has long been regarded with a mixture of awe and apprehension. Each of the four original contributions addresses the history of some of its key features. In the process, each contributor reveals some of the insights that history has to teach us regarding the central concepts that inform contemporary debates about the nature of the corporation, the contours of the corporation’s purpose, the sources of corporate power, the functions of corporate law, the duties of directors, the status of shareholders, and the legitimacy of corporate rights.Peer reviewe

The Corporation as a Chartered Government

The article focuses on reevaluating the historical role of corporations, highlighting their original purpose of improving governance rather than just liability protection or property management. It explores how early scholars saw corporations as entities with legislative authority. It further argues for returning to this governmental perspective, shedding new light on corporate history and their connection to constitutional government